ECB rate hikes are no longer an issue, speed is the focus-Lane Director-Bloomberg

The issue facing the European Central Bank (ECB) is not whether interest rates should be raised, but the speed, said Chief Economist Lane.

“It doesn’t matter if we raise the central bank deposit rate by 0.5% right now,” Lane told Bloomberg Television on the 29th. “The scale and timing of interest rate normalization is a big issue, and it needs to continue to be determined by looking at future data,” he said.

Inflation in the euro area in April, announced today, hit a record high of 7.5%, increasing pressure on the ECB to take the same bold actions as the US and UK financial authorities.

Eurozone inflation hits record highs in April-ECB pressure increases

Inflation is “extremely high and risks are contained in its momentum,” he said, but he also noted that rising prices are affecting income and consumption. “The point is to do the normalization in a solid, careful and sustainable way,” he said.

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news-rsf-original-reference paywall">Lane Says ECB’s Focus Isn’t Whether to Hike, But How Quickly（抜粋）