The European Central Bank has already embarked, in effect, on emergency “quantitative easing” to boost the eurozone economy but stands ready to do more if deflation risks emerge, according to Christian Noyer, governor of the Banque de France.

Hugely expanded ECB operations to pump extra liquidity into the banking system, renewed last week, had taken the central bank into “non-standard monetary policy”, Mr Noyer said in an interview with the Financial Times. “It is a way of doing quantitative easing, certainly.”