ECB's Draghi confident on return of growth

Writing in the central bank's 2014 annual report, Draghi said that he could "envisage with confidence that the weak and uneven recovery experienced in 2014 will turn into a more robust, sustainable upturn – and that inflation will return without undue delay to the ECB's objective of below, but close to, 2 percent over the medium term".

The annual report also looked at the potential impact of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine.

While euro zone banks' exposure to Russia was "sizeable" in some countries, there was unlikely to be a systemic risk to the euro area as a whole, the ECB said.

(Reporting By Jonathan Gould; editing by John O'Donnell)