Good afternoon, and welcome to the ECB press conference. Joined on stage here by President Lagarde and Vice President de Guindos. We are also connected, via link, video link, to some journalists, outside of here. So if you turn on your cameras, and your microphones when you speak, please do so when you take the floor. By the way, my name is Wolfgang Proissl, and with that, I would like to hand over to President Lagarde, please Thank you very much, Wolfgang, and, Happy New Year to all of you. We haven't seen each other since the beginning of the year, and I know it's getting late, but, still time to do so. The President, the Vice President, and I welcome you to our first press conference in 2024. The Governing Council today decided to keep the three key ECB interest rates unchanged. The incoming information has broadly confirmed our previous assessment of medium-term inflation outlook. Aside from an energy-related upward base effect on headline inflation, the declining trend in underlying inflation has continued, and our past interest rate increases keep being transmitted forcefully into financing conditions. Tight financing conditions are dampening demand, and this is helping to push down inflation. We are determined to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term target in a timely manner. Based on our current assessment, we consider that the key ECB interest rates are at a level that, maintained for a sufficiently long duration, will make a substantial contribution to this goal. Our future decisions will ensure that our policy rates will be set at sufficiently restrictive levels for as long as necessary. We will continue to follow a data-dependent approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restriction. In particular, our interest rate decisions will be based on our assessment of the inflation outlook in light of the incoming economic and financial data, the dynamics of underlying inflation, and the strength of monetary policy transmission. The decisions taken today are set out in a press release that is available on our website. I will now outline in more detail how we see the economy and inflation developing, and will then explain our assessment of financial and monetary conditions. Looking at the economic activity, the Euro area economy is likely to have stagnated in the final quarter of 2023. The incoming data continue to signal weakness in the near term. However, some forward-looking survey indicators point to a pickup in growth further ahead. The labor market has remained robust. The unemployment rate, at 6.4% in November, has fallen back to its lowest level since the start of the euro, and more workers have entered the labor force. At the same time, demand for labor is slowing, with fewer vacancies being advertised. Governments should continue to roll back energy-related support measures to avoid driving up medium-term inflation pressures. Fiscal and structural policies should be designed to make our economy more productive and competitive, as well as to gradually bring down high public debt ratios. Structural reforms and investments to enhance the euro area's supply capacity, which would be supported by the full implementation of the Next Generation EU program, can help reduce price pressure in the medium term while supporting the green and digital transitions. Following the recent Ecofin Council agreement on the reform of the EU's economic governance framework, the legislative process should be concluded swiftly so that the new rules can be implemented without delay. Moreover, it is imperative that progress towards Capital Markets Union and the completion of Banking Union be accelerated. Turning now to inflation. Inflation rose to 2.9% in December, as some of the past fiscal measures to cushion the impact of high energy prices dropped out of the annual inflation rate, although the rebound was weaker than expected. Aside from this base effect, the overall trend of declining inflation continued. Food price inflation dropped to 6.1% in December. Inflation, excluding energy and food, also declined again to 3.4% due to a fall in goods inflation to 2.5%. Services inflation was stable at 4%. Inflation is expected to ease further over the course of this year as the effects of past energy shocks, supply bottlenecks, and the post-pandemic reopening of the economy fade, and tighter monetary policy continues to weigh on demand. Almost all measures of underlying inflation declined further in December. The elevated rate of wage increases and falling labor productivity are keeping domestic price pressures high, although these two have started to ease. At the same time, lower unit profits have started to moderate the inflationary effect of rising unit labor costs. Measures of shorter-term inflation expectations have come down markedly, while those of longer-term inflation expectations mostly stand around 2%. Looking now at the risk assessment. The risks to economic growth remain tilted to the downside. Growth could be lower if the effects of monetary policy turn out stronger than expected. A weaker world economy or a further slowdown in global trade would also weigh on Euro area growth. Russia's unjustified war against Ukraine and the tragic conflict in the Middle East are key sources of geopolitical risks. This may result in firms and households becoming less confident about the future and global trade being disrupted. Growth could be higher if rising real incomes mean spending increases by more than anticipated, or if the world economy grows more strongly than expected. Upside risks to inflation include the heightened geopolitical tensions, especially in the Middle East, which could push energy prices and freight costs higher in the near term and hamper global trade. Inflation could also turn out higher than anticipated if wages increase by more than expected or profit margins prove more resilient. By contrast, inflation may surprise on the downside if monetary policy dampens demand by more than expected, or if the economic environment in the rest of the world worsens unexpectedly. Moreover, inflation could decline more quickly in the near term if energy prices evolve in line with the recent downward shift in market expectations of the future path for oil and gas prices. Looking at financial and monetary conditions now. Market interest rates have moved broadly sideways since our last meeting. Our restrictive monetary policy continues to transmit strongly into broader financing conditions. Lending rates on business loans declined slightly to 5.2% in November, while mortgage rates increased further to 4%. High borrowing rates, with the associated cutbacks in investment plans and house purchases, led to a further drop in credit demand in the fourth quarter, as reported in our latest bank lending survey. While the tightening of credit standards for loans to firms and households moderated, they remained tight, with banks concerned about the risks faced by their customers. Against this background, credit dynamics have improved somewhat, but overall remain weak. Loans to firms stagnated in November compared with a year earlier, after contracting in October, as the monthly flow of short-term loans rebounded. Loans to households grew at a subdued annual rate of 0.5%. To conclude, the Governing Council today decided to keep the three key ECB interest rates unchanged. We are determined to ensure that inflation returns to our 2% medium-term target in a timely manner. Based on our current assessment, we consider that the key ECB interest rates are at levels that, maintained for a sufficiently long duration, will make a substantial contribution to this goal. Our future decisions will ensure that our policy rates will be set at sufficiently restrictive levels for as long as necessary. We will continue to follow a data-dependent approach to determining the appropriate level and duration of restrictions. In any case, we stand ready to adjust all of our instruments within our mandate to ensure that inflation returns to our medium-term target and to preserve the smooth functioning of monetary policy transmission. We're now ready to take your questions. Thank you, President Lagarde. The first question goes to Mark Schroers, of Bloomberg. Mark, please. Yes, thanks a lot for taking my questions. The first one is on interest rates. Last week in Davos, you said that you consider it likely that interest rates will be cut in summer, after some of your colleagues already had given similar guidance. Did you discuss the possible timing of an interest rate cut at today's meeting, also in light of the weak economic data we got from Germany this morning? And if not, if you didn't discuss it, would you stand by your remark from Davos? Is it likely that we will get a cut in summer, and does that mean that at least from your point of view, March and April are off the table? And the second one is on geopolitical risk and, in particular, the Red Sea shipping turmoil. You recently mentioned a possible comeback of supply bottlenecks as a key risk factor for inflation. You also mentioned it today, and your colleague, Robert Holzmann, even warned that rate cuts in 2024 can't be taken for granted because of these risks. Given the most recent developments, the ongoing tensions in the region, have you, as the Governing Council, became even more concerned about it? How would you react if risks materialize, for example, if inflation picks up again due to higher shipping costs or new supply chain disruptions? Thank you. Well, thank you very much for your series of questions. Well, first of all, the consensus around the table of the Governing Council was that it was premature to discuss rate cuts. And in addition to that, I typically stand by my comments. So the comments I made to your television channel, Bloomberg, I certainly stand by them. I'm not sure that I would exactly characterize them as you have, but I stand by what I have said, not what by, what other have commented that I have said. One other thing which was very much the consensus around the table was that we had to continue to be data dependent. So rather than being fixated on any kind of particular calendar, which would be being date dependent, we reaffirmed our data dependency. I have flagged in the course of the monetary policy statement some of the areas that we will be particularly attentive to in the course of the next few months. You specifically addressed the issue of the supply bottlenecks. I would be maybe a bit cautious about the use of supply bottlenecks because it was very much associated with the consequences of COVID and the multifaceted bottlenecks that we observed, both in shipping, in port handling, in dispatching of containers, which was really a very sizable disruption in the whole logistic chain. We are observing very carefully because we are seeing what you are all observing, which is that shipping costs are increasing, delivery delays are increasing, and while we all know that there is more shipping capacity than there was in 2020 and 2021, we also know that costs and fees are increasing. Now, it does not... I think most observers agree to say that it has a moderate impact. The percentage of the waterborne shipping freight is a little north of 1.5% of total cost transported. But we are being very careful, and look attentively to the developments, and it's pretty clear, and I think whether you look at the IMF, the OECD, or other commentators, if the conflict in that region was to develop further, clearly that would be an additional risk, whether it, you know, it's a question of the disruption of shipping that we alluded to, or the price of energy and commodities at large. Thank you. Thank you. The next question goes to Annette Weisbach of CNBC. Annette, please. Thank you very much. President Lagarde, I have a question on, because you're always referring to wage data. So there's loads of wage data around. So what are you actually really looking at? And, is there a cutoff point in the coming year? Because clearly, we can look at wage data throughout the year. And then I would like to again bring you back to that before summer decision thing. June is a good timing, isn't it? Because you have a new round of staff projections, so in case inflation outlook would materialize to be lower than which we have it now, would that mean—would give you more ground to actually cut rates? Thank you. Well, thank you very much. So thank you for your question on wage, because as you have noted, it is an item that we're going to look at and that we have looked at very carefully, as we are also looking very carefully at unit profits and the link between unit labor costs and unit profits, which was one of the key assumptions we had under our baseline. I remind you that the baseline we had was that wage increases would gradually, over the course of time, be absorbed by a slight reduction, gradual reduction of unit profits, and that's exactly what we are seeing. It's often said that wage indicators are backward-looking, and yes, there is a whole battery of backward-looking indicator. For instance, the latest, I think it's the per employee compensation data that is available, dates back to October. So what we have in addition to that is indices that we have built, over the course of time, one of which is actually originating from Ireland. So our chief economist, Philip Lane, was at the origin of that one, which is the wage tracker, which receives almost any change to negotiated agreements in particular, and we receive that on a constant basis. The other indicator, which also is important, not so much in relation to wages, but in relation to the tightness of the labor market, is Indeed, which, you know, gathers all the vacancies advertised, particularly on the internet. That informs about the tension of the labor market, and of course, is telling us a little bit where we are heading in terms of that tightness, which itself result in, you know, a position of strength in the negotiation for one party or the other. We are seeing those indicators at high level. What we are also seeing on the wage tracker is stabilization, which explains the comments included in the monetary policy statement, and in Indeed, we are seeing also a slight reduction of the volume of vacancies that are advertised. Now, we take all this data, you know, at face value, and we try to constantly corroborate them. We do that with the national central bank's observers and economists to make sure that we really canvass the 20 member states as accurately as possible. But it's not elusive, because really we're trying to pin it down, but it requires that we look at it from multiple angles to make sure that we are as accurate and as up-to-date as we can. Being forward-looking is not an easy one for wages, but just to give you an idea, I think it's 40% of the employees covered by our wage tracker, which have had their employment contract renewed without new terms of salary levels at December, and there is... And so the 40% include those whose terms and conditions have expired and must be renewed at the end of December, and those for which the same will happen in the first three months of 2024. So you have 40% of the workforce of whom salaries, wages, one-off payments are yet to be determined and will be tracked by our wage tracker. And this information will come in the course of the next few months, which will be, of course, really rich in information to help us better understand exactly where we are on wages. So, as I said, we are data dependent, and we make decisions one meeting at a time. So what we have done in the course of this meeting today, is we have confirmed our inflation outlook, and we consider that the information that we have received in the last few weeks since our December meeting, show that the medium-term inflation outlook is broadly following the path that we had projected in December. That's point number one. Point number two, we look also very carefully at data concerning underlying inflation, and here we are seeing a decline across the board of pretty much all our indicators, except domestic inflation. We also look carefully at inflation expectations. That was also... Those were a few weeks which were rich in information, where we have seen that both the market-based and the survey-based inflation expectations are also both in the short term and, for some of them, also for the medium term, really coming at around our 2% target. And of course, we look at the latest inflation numbers, and you will have seen, all of you, that the December number was 0.5% north of the November number, which was this 2.4. But we had expected that upside, which was caused by base effect, largely attributable to German measures. It was weaker than we had anticipated, but it was totally predicted, and it does not detract from the view that we have that the disinflation process is at work. And of course, we look... Sorry, I should have mentioned that, because I mentioned the inflation outlook, the underlying inflation. Of course, we look very carefully at the strength of monetary policy transmission, and here again, we had some good, good data and information, notably from the bank lending survey. Thank you. The next question goes to Aude Kersulec of BFM Business. Aude, please. Thank you for taking my question. You're data dependent to this data on wages that won't be published before late spring. Don't you think you, this could lead to cut too late, if not, before June? And could you explain more about the word premature when you speak about rate cuts? Does that mean that council has spoken about cuts? I think it's, you know, I'm not going to elaborate much further on that. I can only... All I can say is that the consensus around the table of the Governing Council this morning was that it was premature to discuss rate cuts. It's as simple as that. You had another point on wages and publication of wage numbers. We will have a lot of information coming in the next few months.... So we will have our projections in March. That's a big set of information that will clearly inform on the inflation outlook, and which lead us to, you know, assess whether we are on path. We will receive two inflation monthly data for January and February before our March meeting, and then we will continue to receive additional data, and you're right, some of those wage data will come in later. But we look at the whole range of data. It's not just, we're not only focused on wages. We are clearly interested in wages because it's a significant component of service, and service is that section in the breaking down of inflation, which is still quite resistant and stayed at 4% from December to November. It's the only item that has actually stayed at the same level. Thank you. Thank you. Next question goes to Martin Arnold of the Financial Times. Thank you very much. I have two questions from me. Firstly, just to go back to wage growth and what you're looking at, is it fair to assume that the focus on wages means that you need to see wage growth falling before you're prepared to cut rates, or do you just need to see it stabilizing? What is it you want to see from this wage data that you're waiting for? And the second one is, if I could ask you a bit of a longer-term question: Where do you see the neutral rate, and do you think that the neutral rate has been pushed up by the crises that we've seen over the last few years, or is it unchanged, or has it actually come down? What's your view on that? Thank you. Thank you very much for the two questions. So on wage growth, I think what we are already seeing, whether you look at sort of past wage numbers, whether you dissect that in compensation per employee, in negotiated wages, taking on excluding the one-off payments, we are seeing a slight decline. So it's directionally good from our perspective. To your question, should it stabilize or should it decline? It's already declining. You know, clearly, our hope is that the wage increase, because we're still seeing an increase, you know, whether you look at numbers at 5.2% or 3.4%, depending on what measurement item you take, that these increases are sufficiently absorbed by the profit unit, as we are seeing it happening at the moment, so that it does not go into fueling inflation, which would create the risk of a second-round effect, which we are not seeing for the moment. So the hypothesis that we had when we built the baseline of December, which was that profit unit would gradually come down as a result of dampened demand, as a result of our monetary policy stance, is actually happening, and there is a phenomenon of catching up for employees. It's also one of the reasons why we see growth coming up and the recovery beginning in the course of 2024, because of rising wages while inflation comes down, which will free up some purchasing power, which hopefully will stimulate consumption. Now, on your second question, I'm not going to answer your question, Martin, because the real answer is that I'm not so sure, and it's the honest answer to you. I could play a game of telling you that maybe it's a little higher, but we're not going to know until we get to that point of the neutral interest rate. And as policymakers, I think it's our responsibility not to predicate, not to anticipate, but to make the right policy decisions in due course to make sure that we reach our medium-term target of 2%. Thank you. And, the next question goes to, Silvia Berzoni of, Class CNBC TV channel in Italy. Silvia, please. Good afternoon, President. Good afternoon, Vice President. So the first question, given that market's expectation are still optimistic, of course, the ECB is data-dependent, but would you say that the case for a rate cut in April is unlikely? And the second question is referred to growth again. You said that there are more downside risk, and if it's true that the path of disinflation is following your December projections, is it true also for growth? Thank you very much. You know, it's we are in January, and the first quarter, Q1 2024, is going to end in March. So I think it's totally premature to anticipate what exactly will be the growth projection at you know at our next meeting in March. We will come to that projection when we produce our projections in March. On the on your other question, I think in terms of an overall evaluation of our policy trajectory, which many of you are after, we need to be further along in the disinflation process... before we can be sufficiently confident that inflation will actually hit the target in a timely manner and at a sustainable in a sustainable way at target. So it's a disinflation process in which we are. It is working, but we need to be more advanced, and we need to be further along in that process to be confident that inflation will be at target, sustainably so. And I'm, I'm giving you a little indication about what I call the trajectory, but I'm not—it's not forward guidance. It's, it's trying to give you the, the mechanics that we will apply in our considerations when we look at data in the next few weeks. Thank you, Madame Lagarde. First of all, I give the next question to Francesco Canepa of Reuters. Francesco, please. Good afternoon, everyone. My first question is about: Why did you take out a reference to sustained under domestic price pressures from the opening statement, and also reference to unit labor costs? And the second question is about a survey the staff union published earlier this week, which showed that some staff are unhappy with you as a leader. So what do you plan to do to win them back? Thank you. On the issue of omission here or there, I think you should not be overly focused on what is deleted, what stays in. There are some segments in the monetary policy statements that we are very keen to keep because they indicate the principle on which we lay our monetary policy stance, and that are the backbone of our discussions. Okay? But a word here or a word there, I would not give it too much of weight as such. We are trying and... You may have noticed that we are trying to be a little more simple in our expression, to use fewer words, to be more more normal in a way, and that sometimes implies that we change, you know, sentence, the order of a paragraph versus another one. So don't pay too much attention to the deletion of one word or the other. On the other hand, when you see sentences or block of key points that are repeated on a regular basis, that means something. Okay? So at the ECB, we have many surveys, and we actually conduct surveys in a very technically proven way that we can trust. And in the surveys that the ECB conducts, we typically ask staff whether they are happy to work at the ECB. Those surveys are responded to at a rate of about 60%, north of 60%. To that question: "Are you happy to work at the ECB?" The overwhelming majority, namely 80%, say, "Yes, I'm happy to work at the ECB." The second question that we ask also is: "Would you recommend to a friend to work at the ECB?" The answer is overwhelming majority, again, north of 75%. A question that is often asked as well is: "Do you feel a mission associated to your work?" More than 90% of staff says yes. Now, we ask lots of other questions about satisfaction, dissatisfaction, compensation, dignity at work, and all the rest of it, and we pay great attention to these technically sound responses, and we act upon them, and we will continue to do so. Now, what keeps me going is those answers, and I'm extremely proud of the staff of the ECB, and I'm very proud and honored to lead the institution, because we are driven by a mission, delivering price stability, but serving the Europeans, and we will continue doing that. That's my response to your question. Those are the surveys that I'm particularly attentive to and keen to constantly improve. Thank you. Thank you, Madame Lagarde. The next question goes to Stefan Reccius of Handelsblatt. Stefan, please. Thank you for the floor. I have two questions here. I'm here. Two questions, if I may. The first one is on the divergence of inflation rates. Now, it's been there for a while, but now, in some countries, inflation rates have fallen well below 2%, while other member states have way to go with regard to inflation rates to bring it down to 2%. So, how big of a burden is that in terms of transmission of monetary policy, as well as regarding discussions in the Governing Council on the timing of rate cuts? And my second question is on spreads. Spreads of sovereign bonds have narrowed in recent times. Is that good news? Are you pleased to see that, or are you worried that markets have gotten ahead of themselves in that regard as well, assuming lower rates going forward? Thank you. Well, thank you for your, for your question. You know, it's, it's inherent to, the Euro area that we have heterogeneity, that we have divergences, and it, it does not escape any topic or any field that there is heterogeneity and differences and divergences. It's the case for inflation. Clearly, it is the case for the type of lending terms that are offered to Europeans, whether you have a loan in Portugal or Spain, or whether you have a loan in, in France, when you're a household, you're going to have different terms applying to you. And that's, that's what we have inherited from the Euro area. It's what it is. And, I can assure you that around the table, all, governors come both in their respective capacity, having in mind their country, but also having in mind the whole Euro area and determining the policy for the whole Euro area. So we look at that carefully, but, there is, there is lots of explanations as to why, for instance, inflation was much higher in the Baltic States than it was, in France, for example. But we obviously have to decide for the whole of the Euro area, and the governors are riveted to that as an area of competence as far as they're concerned. Spreads is one indication of transmission, and of course, we look at those carefully, but I'm not going to pass any other judgment in that respect. Thank you. Thank you very much. The next question goes to Andrés Stumpf of Expansión. Andrés, please. Good afternoon, Madam Lagarde. Can you give us any updates on the state of the monetary framework revision, and how important will it be on the future decisions that the ECB will have to make along the year? And a second question, if I may. Now that the Fed is letting expire its emergency liquidity lines for banks, do you fear that given the tight financial conditions, we could see again some of the tensions on the financial system that we saw last year? Thank you. Thank you very much for asking for the update on the operational framework. So what I can tell you is that work is advancing at a very fast pace. Many of our teams are working very hard. It's a technical, difficult issue, which has many ramifications and of course, where there are different options. I think we are narrowing down to what will be optimal for the perspective of our market, which is, as we just discussed, which has heterogeneity and large differences between the member states. We will most likely, you know, I have to take some precautions because work is underway, but we're most likely will be done by the end of spring. That's my guess estimate. Will it matter significantly for the short term? Not necessarily, because we start from a balance sheet size which will not require that the operational framework principles that we will decide collectively at the Governing Council level will have an impact in the very short term. Thank you. On the emergency line and the risk that we see on... You're talking about the U.S. market here. I wouldn't want to pass judgment, number one, and I have full trust in my colleague and colleagues at the Fed and at the SEC and otherwise, to actually supervise very carefully what is going on at the regional banks levels. But I don't... you know, I'm not passing judgment on that. Thank you, Madam Lagarde. The next question goes to Carlo Boffa of Politico. Carlo, please. Thank you very much for taking my question. The first question that I want to ask, given the latest PMI and the tensions in the Red Sea, where do you think that growth stood in the fourth quarter of 2023? Do you still stand by your forecast that you made in December, that the Eurozone will avoid the recession? And the second question is again about the staff survey mentioned before. There was some direct criticism at you. And I wanted to ask, do you think it's fair, and how do you plan to address this criticism in the next years that you still be ECB president? Thank you. Thank you for your question. On the... I don't know exactly what PMI numbers you're referring to, because the most recent PMI numbers are actually little indication that things are, you know, coming in place for recovery in 2024. So if you have other PMI numbers that I'm not aware of, then let me know. But, you know, when I look at the Composite PMI Output, it's higher than it was the month before. If I look at PMI future output, it's north of 50. So, maybe you have better information. Politico is usually very, very insightful in all sorts of things. But, you know, for us, these PMI numbers are, you know, small signal that having stabilized or stabilizing, we have the conditions for recovery that are coming into place. I'm not suggesting that it's going to pick up radically, but it's, it's coming into place, from what we see. You know, I think I said at the opening of the monetary policy statement. Anyway, you will find it, but, I'm not going to waste any everybody's time with that. But we recognize the weakness of growth, and that weakness obviously applies to Q4. Now, you know, there are multiple ways to define what is a recession. The technical terminology of two quarters in a row that are negative is one way to look at it. I remember discussing that with my colleague and friend, Janet Yellen, where the U.S. had two quarters in a row that were negative, and when I said: "Well, Janet, you must be in a recession," and she said, "What? With those employment numbers? Forget it. We are not in recession." So I think, you know, we have to be attentive to all sorts of data signals and understanding of the economy. On your second question, look, as far as I'm concerned, I am irrelevant as long as I deliver on leading this institution of talented people. Not just economists, talented people who are driven to do their job and to deliver. The rest, me as a person? Irrelevant. Thank you. And the last question goes to a participant, via the video link. So, Federico Fubini from Corriere della Sera. Federico, please, over to you. So it's on screen now? You are still muted, Federico. Yeah. Where is he? Now probably you can hear me. Yes. Sorry. Yes. Yeah. Okay, yeah. You just addressed partially this question, but Italian Minister Giorgetti declared a few days ago that monetary policy may be bringing about a recession in the Euro area. I was wondering whether you have any comments, not so much on what Giorgetti said, but on these kind of concerns that are... one can hear here and there. And the other question is, sorry, on, on wage settlements. From what you said, I understand that probably the ECB wants to see wage settlements data that have to do with the first quarter, which probably you will receive from Eurostat at the end of April. Am I wrong on this? You must have checked that very carefully because I received the same question from multiple Italian journalists, so you must be feeding them. On your first question, I would simply repeat what I have said, so I partially responded to your question. We are looking at all data, not just wages, huh? And in terms of activity, what we are seeing is hard data that is weak. You know, you look at industrial production, it continued to decline. You look at retail sales, it remained weak. It didn't decline further, but it remained weak. If we try to look at PMI numbers in particular, as I just said, we are seeing some encouraging numbers, whether it indicates stabilization or slight uptick. This is... You know, it's very early sign. People can challenge PMI numbers, and they do, but at least we, we are seeing numbers that are either to the upside or, or stable. On your other question, as I said, we are looking at all sorts of data. We are looking at wages a lot for the reasons that I have explained, and because there is a catch-up process that is underway, and, and that should run its course this year, probably next year, and. But we're looking at lots of other things. So, you know, I would not draw any conclusion from a date of publication. You have to appreciate that, yes, we are data dependent, but we look at multiple data, wages being a key one, of course, unit profits being extremely important as well. Energy prices will continue to matter enormously. They've been, you know, taking us up and down, and they are volatile and moving almost as we speak at the moment, given the geopolitical development that we see. We will be looking at fiscal very carefully. There are commitments on the part of member states' governments that they will be withdrawing the energy support. We will be very attentive to that, and we will see how much fiscal consolidation there is relative to the budgets that have been submitted. So it's all this data that we will be looking at, and you're correct about the date of publication. Thank you very much. This closes our press conference. The next press conference is scheduled for the seventh of March, and until then, all the best. Thank you.