Banks, EU – Baltic States, Financial Services, Good for Business, Lithuania

"This will be the first time the Governing Council will take its monetary policy decisions in Lithuania," it said in a press release. 

"This is an important meeting as we will be discussing the latest hard data, which will provide insight into the economic situation in the near and medium term," said Vitas Vasiliauskas, the Lithuanian central bank governor and a member of the ECB Governing Council.  

ECB President Mario Draghi and five other members of the ECB Executive Board, as well as the central bank governors of all 19 euro area member countries are expected to participate in the Vilnius meeting. 

This will mark Draghi's second official visit to Lithuania. The first one took place in September 2014, when Lithuania was preparing to adopt the euro.

"The Governing Council – the main decision-making body of the ECB – usually meets twice a month at the ECB's premises in Frankfurt am Main, Germany. It assesses economic and monetary developments and takes its monetary policy decisions, i.e. sets the key interest rates for the euro area, every six weeks," the central bank said.

"Once a year the ECB Governing Council holds an external meeting in one of the euro area countries. In 2017 the external meeting was held in Tallinn, the year before – in Riga," it said.