ECB's Draghi: Our confidence in the inflation path is rising

Below are the key quotes from the introductory statement by Mario Draghi, President of the ECB, at the ECON committee of the European Parliament, Brussels, 9 July 2018.

• The labour market has improved notably over recent years.
• Our confidence in the inflation path is also rising. 
• The projected path of inflation appears to be self-sustained, i.e. resilient to a gradual ending of net asset purchases.
• The expected end of the net asset purchases in December 2018 does not mean that our monetary policy ceases to be expansionary.
• We estimate that the measures we have taken since mid-2014 will have an overall cumulative impact of around 1.9 percentage points on both euro area real GDP growth and inflation for the period between 2016 and 2020.
• Downside risks to the outlook mainly relate to the threat of increased protectionism.