The European Central Bank (ECB) could raise its interest rates from historic lows as soon as July, its president hinted Wednesday, as inflation in the eurozone soars.
The Frankfurt-based institution should end its bond-buying stimulus program “early in the third quarter,” Lagarde said in a speech in Ljubljana, followed by a rate hike that could come “only a few weeks” later.
The remarks are the clearest sign yet from Lagarde that the ECB is ready to move on rates soon rather than later. She cemented market expectations that the bank will raise its policy rate for the first time in over a decade in July in a bid to tame record-high eurozone consumer prices – the result of surging energy prices spilling over to other goods.
Most other major central banks have already raised borrowing costs to combat soaring consumer prices, but the ECB, which had fought too low inflation for a decade, is still pumping cash into the financial system via bond purchases.
ECB policymakers will next meet on June 9 and July 21 to decide their course of action.
“My expectation is that they should be concluded early in the third quarter,” Lagarde said at a conference in the Slovenian capital.
“The first rate hike, informed by the ECB’s forward guidance on the interest rates, will take place some time after the end of net asset purchases ... (and) this could mean a period of only a few weeks.”
She was joining a growing number of ECB policymakers calling for a July hike after inflation hit 7.5% in the eurozone last month and even measures that strip out food and energy prices rose above the ECB’s 2% target.
“What started as a one-off shock has now become a more broad-based phenomenon,” ECB policymaker Bostjan Vasle said at the same event. “When the circumstances change, the policy response must follow,” the Slovenian governor added.
ECB board member Frank Elderson also said earlier on Wednesday the ECB may consider a rate hike in July, a move that has also been advocated by Bundesbank head Joachim Nagel among others.
Estonian governor Madis Mueller said the ECB’s rate on bank deposits, which is currently minus 0.5%, may rise above zero by the end of the year for what would be the first time since 2014.
“Even if we go by 25 basis point increments, we may get to a positive rate by the end of the year,” he told Reuters in an interview.
