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Exclusive: ECB’s Demarco: “June Is the More Natural Horizon for Judgment”

Exclusive: ECB’s Demarco: “June Is the More Natural Horizon for Judgment”

By David Barwick and Marta Vilar – WASHINGTON (Econostream) – June, rather than the April 30 policy meeting, would be the more appropriate point for the European Central Bank to judge whether the war-driven energy shock is feeding through into broader inflation, according to ECB Governing Council member Alexander Demarco.

17 April 2026

Latest News

Central Bank News

April 22

ECB’s Nagel: Digital Euro Would Strengthen Europe’s “Strategic Autonomy”

ECB’s Nagel: Digital Euro Would Strengthen Europe’s “Strategic Autonomy”

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel on Wednesday argued that the digital euro had become a political project aimed at strengthening Europe’s sovereignty in payments, saying the bloc could no longer afford heavy reliance on non-European providers in such a critical area.

22 April 2026

Debt Issuance News

March 25

March 18

ECB Tone Meter

Entire Governing Council

27 Members
Very Dovish
Very Hawkish

Executive Board

6 Members
Very Dovish
Very Hawkish

Evolution

Governing Council vs. Executive Board

As of 22 April 2026

Meeting Bias

ECB Governing Council Meeting

Insights

ECB Insight: How the ECB’s April Hike Talk Gave Way to June

ECB Insight: How the ECB’s April Hike Talk Gave Way to June

By David Barwick and Marta Vilar – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank did not abruptly take an April 30 rate hike off the table. Instead, starting in late March and gathering pace by mid-April, policymakers increasingly stopped preparing markets for action at the next meeting and started buying time. April remained formally live, but messaging pointed more and more clearly toward June as the meeting at which the Governing Council expected to know enough to judge whether the Iran shock was merely painful or genuinely inflationary in the medium term.

22 April 2026
ECB Insight: Lagarde Makes the Case to Wait

ECB Insight: Lagarde Makes the Case to Wait

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde’s speech in Berlin on Monday fit neatly into the pattern of recent ECB communication. Patient but not complacent, it was above all an effort to explain why the ECB still does not know enough to draw robust near-term policy conclusions.

21 April 2026
ECB Insight: OMFIF’s ECB Succession Survey Mistakes Politics for Human Resources

ECB Insight: OMFIF’s ECB Succession Survey Mistakes Politics for Human Resources

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – OMFIF’s new survey on who should succeed European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde is interesting chiefly as a snapshot of elite chatter, because it treats the ECB presidency as if the position were being filled by a search committee weighing CVs against a competency matrix.

20 April 2026
ECB Insight: Why June Could Yet Become the New April

ECB Insight: Why June Could Yet Become the New April

By David Barwick and Marta Vilar – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – We return from the IMF Spring Meetings in Washington yet more convinced that treating a June hike as the inevitable byproduct of an April hold understates the risk that June, too, will prove too early.

20 April 2026