European Central Bank Board Member Olli Rehn believes that emerging conditions will allow borrowing costs to be reduced more than once during the current year, expecting the first such step to be “near summer.”
“I see the approaching summer as the right time to start easing the tight approach to monetary policy,” Ren said in an interview with YLE TV1 on Saturday. “If inflation stabilizes sustainably at 2%, and no negative shocks – such as “The energy crisis – I think we will have prerequisites to cut interest rates several times over time this year.”
European Central Bank officials are close to making their first interest rate cut in June – once they are convinced that consumer price increases will sustainably return to 2%. This would shift the debate on the course of monetary policy even further, with some of Ren’s colleagues already speculating about where borrowing costs will go in the rest of 2024.
The most specific comments this week came from Greece’s Yannis Stournaras, who told Bloomberg that he would like to see two cuts before the European Central Bank’s August holiday, followed by two more cuts by the end of the year.
Asked about the interest rate path, Ren said he favored a gradual assessment based on the latest data. He added: “We have a lot of meetings, and we can make decisions during one meeting after another.”
2024-03-16 18:25:50
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