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“Our expectation for a moderate recovery in 2015 and 2016 remains in place,” Mr. Draghi said.

His statement, though incrementally more upbeat, was consistent with others he has made in recent months, in which he has left the door open to the same “quantitative easing” used by the Federal Reserve in the United States and other central banks to stimulate their economies.  The European Central Bank has been edging closer to large-scale purchases of government bonds, which are seen as an essential component of quantitative easing. But the bank also seems to hope that this controversial step will not be necessary.  Mr. Draghi said he thought that previous measures by the bank were beginning to show results, including low interest rates and a program that grants loans to banks on very favorable terms, if they in turn lend the money to businesses and individuals.  In a speech, a European Central Bank official said that the bank could also buy gold, stocks or other securities traded on exchanges.  But the official, Yves Mersch, a member of the bank's six-member executive board, listed numerous reasons why quantitative easing, and in particular large-scale purchases of government bonds, might not work as well in Europe as it did in the United States.  The Federal Reserve “operates in a completely different environment than the E.C.B.,” Mr. Mersch said at a banking conference in Frankfurt.  Bond purchases aimed at pushing down long-term interest rates would have less effect in Europe, Mr. Mersch said, because most credit flows through banks rather than capital markets.He also expressed concern that if some governments defaulted on debt purchased by the bank, it would face a conflict between printing money to cover the losses and keeping inflation under control.  Mr. Mersch acknowledged that quantitative easing could have a positive psychological effect on markets. But he said he was concerned that government bond purchases by the bank would effectively make eurozone taxpayers liable for each country’s debt, without the approval of elected officials. National governments in the eurozone are ultimately liable for any losses suffered by the bank.  “It is questionable to what extent it would be justifiable to communalize credit risks,” Mr. Mersch said.  He noted that many of the calls for the E.C.B. to begin quantitative easing come from the United States and Britain.  Mr. Mersch said he wished “that these well-meaning suggestions were based on thorough understanding of the institutional and legal limits of the E.C.B. as well as the economical particularities of the euro area.”