ECB-Meeting of 5-6 March 2025 Account of the monetary policy meeting of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank

April 3, 2025--Held in Frankfurt am Main
1. Review of financial, economic and monetary developments and policy options
Financial market developments
Ms Schnabel started her presentation by noting that, since the Governing Council's previous monetary policy meeting on 29-30 January 2025, euro area and US markets had moved in opposite directions in a highly volatile political environment.

In the euro area, markets had focused on the near-term macroeconomic backdrop, with incoming data in the euro area surprising on the upside.

Lower energy prices responding in part to the prospect of a ceasefire in Ukraine, looser fiscal policy due to increased defence spending and a potential relaxation of Germany's fiscal rules had supported investor sentiment. This contrasted with developments in the United States, where market participants’ assessment of the new US Administration's policy decisions had turned more negative amid fears of tariffs driving prices up and dampening consumer and business sentiment.

A puzzling feature of recent market developments had been the dichotomy between measures of policy uncertainty and financial market volatility. Global economic policy uncertainty had shot up in the final quarter of 2024 and had reached a new all-time high, surpassing the peak seen at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. By contrast, volatility in euro area and US equity markets had remained muted, despite having broadly traced dynamics in economic policy uncertainty over the past 15 years.

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Source: ECB