ECB’s October minutes: Examining all options for further action in December

The account of the monetary policy October meeting makes it clear that the Governing Council (GC) was dissatisfied about how monetary policy had so far not been able to deliver a noticeable impact on its final target, i.e. moving inflation decisively to a higher path. This posed a challenge to the GC in formulating the most appropriate stance for the euro area's monetary policy. 

As a result, the ECB stated that the "degree of monetary policy accommodation would need to be re-examined in December" at the time of the release of the ECB staff update of macroeconomic forecasts. In addition, ECB staff and the relevant Eurosystem committees were mandated to conduct a technical analysis of the monetary policy stimulus achieved, review the options available should the GC judge that further monetary accommodation was necessary, and analyse them in terms of efficacy. 

"Overall, we think that the October minutes did not deliver any critical new insight", notes Barclays.