24/7 Wall St.

The European Central Bank (ECB) may not have liked to see that Italy has swung back down into recession territory, and it sure as hell doesn’t like to see Europe weakness tied to Russia-Ukraine tensions. Still, the central bank just wasn’t able to pull another rabbit out of its hat.

We would remind readers that the ECB has already started its experiment with negative interest rates.

At Thursday’s meeting in Europe, the Governing Council of the European Central Bank voted to maintain the interest rates. They will remain unchanged on the main refinancing operations, on the marginal lending facility and on the deposit facility. These were set as 0.15%, 0.40% and -0.10% respectively.

Mario Draghi, president of the European Central Bank, has said that the information seen is consistent with a moderate to uneven recovery. He also believes that inflation remains anchored, and the measures taken in June are leading to a climate of easing. Draghi further went on to say the same thing that the U.S. Federal Reserve forecast over and over: Key rates will stay at present levels for an extended period.

Thursday’s news is hardly earth-shattering, and its impact on the stock and bond market is likely to be muted, unless Mario Draghi issues a surprise after his press conference. More eyes were likely on the U.S. weekly jobless claims on Thursday.

ALSO READ: 11 Countries Near Bankruptcy