ECB leaves policy unchanged

The European Central Bank on Thursday left its policy measures unchanged, as expected by economists.

The ECB's Governing Council decided to keep interest rates at 0.0%, the deposit facility rate at -0.40% and the marginal lending facility rate at 0.25%.

"The Governing Council continues to expect the key ECB interest rates to remain at present or lower levels for an extended period of time, and well past the horizon of the net asset purchases," the ECB said in a statement.

The asset purchase programme was also maintained at €80bn per month until the end of March 2017.

President Mario Draghi is due to comment on the decision at 1330 BST.

"The decision to maintain the formal 'end date' at March 2017 will elicit a lot of questions later today, mainly on what the proviso 'beyond, if necessary' means exactly," said Claus Vistesen, chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics.

"Our base case remains that the ECB ultimately will be forced to continue QE after Q1 next year."