US Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh said at the ECB's annual Sintra forum that the Fed intends to abandon traditional forward guidance and that inflation remains too high; he declined to signal the July rate decision

Christine Lagarde used the ECB's annual Sintra forum on June 29 to declare that the bank had returned to its core mandate of price stability through the interest rate alone, abandoning forward guidance and committing to a new 'framework guidance' model that gives markets less advance signalling

The eurozone's central bank sets interest rates for 350 million people across 20 countries, with a treaty mandate to hold inflation at 2%.

Shared currency of 21 EU member states and the world's second reserve currency, the euro gives the European Central Bank its primary lever over the eurozone economy.