The European Central Bank will buy fewer bonds for the rest of the year in response to improved economic and financial conditions, while saying it could increase its stimulus again if the eurozone outlook worsens.

After a two-day meeting of its governing council concluded in Frankfurt on Thursday, the ECB said it had decided to move to “a moderately lower pace” in its €1.85tn Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) from the €80bn-a-month level it has run at since March.

“Based on a joint assessment of financing conditions and the inflation outlook, the governing council judges that favourable financing conditions can be maintained with a moderately lower pace of net asset purchases under the PEPP than in the previous two quarters,” the ECB said in a press release.