ECB not discussing changes to policy stance, Coeure says

Central bank officials in the single currency bloc had not been discussing making changes to their monetary policy, a top official said.

"The Governing Council has not been discussing changes in our monetary policy that may come in the future," European Central Bank governing council member Benoit Coeure said.

In remarks made at a press briefing, Coeure also gave short shrift to the bout of volatility in capital markets that accompanied ECB chief Mario Draghi's most recent speech.

"I don't think these kind of market reactions that we've seen last week are very significant in the big picture," he said.

Speaking at the ECB Forum on Central Banking in 27 June Draghi said deflationary forces had been replaced by reflationary ones and that the factors weighing on the path of inflation were mainly temporary.

His remarks were interpreted as more hawkish by many analysts, leading to a sharp rise in the euro's value and in government bond yields across the Eurozone.

However, in the days afterwards the ECB's vicepresident Vitor Constancio said that Draghi's speech had contained no new signals.

Constancio's comment chimed with a speech from ECB chief economist Peter Praet on 4 July in which he argued for persistence and patience when deciding on the central bank's asset purchases, in order to ensure inflation was brought back to target.