By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – Econostream's ECB Tone Meter registered a noticeable drop for the Governing Council and a smaller decline for the Executive Board this week, as policymakers continued to stress upside inflation risks while refraining from signaling further rate increases as clearly as they had prior to the June meeting.
19 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – Italy’s Ministry of Economy and Finance (MEF) raised €8.843 billion in the first issuance of the new BTP Italia Sì retail bond, the ministry said on Friday in a press release.
19 June 2026 Debt Issuance News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane said on Friday that it would have been difficult to justify leaving interest rates unchanged at the ECB's June meeting, given the deterioration in the inflation outlook.
19 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch has offered a surprisingly strong account of why the European Central Bank might not have needed to raise rates last week, coupled with a weaker defense of why it nonetheless did.
19 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank will send banks a “dear CEO letter” urging them to prepare proactively for increasingly powerful cyberattacks enabled by frontier artificial intelligence models, ECB Executive Board member Frank Elderson said Friday.
19 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said Friday that Europe urgently needed to reduce its dependence on foreign payment providers to safeguard its monetary sovereignty.
19 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch would support another 25bp rate hike if inflation data continued to disappoint, but saw no need to move quickly if the evidence remained ambiguous.
19 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member José Luis Escrivá said on Thursday that policymakers should remain cautious about the implications of the recent US-Iran agreement, noting the need for the ECB to remain "particularly agile" in responding to evolving inflation risks.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – The Spanish Treasury on Thursday raised €5.833 billion through an auction of bonds with maturities ranging from seven to 14 years, including one Bono del Estado and two Obligaciones del Estado.
18 June 2026 Debt Issuance News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane said on Thursday that the ECB's 25bp rate increase this month was a "delta response" to a higher inflation outlook, adding that estimates of the neutral rate were less relevant for current policy decisions than the change in the inflation outlook.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The most important statement at last week’s European Central Bank press conference was President Christine Lagarde’s repeated assertion that the decision to raise interest rates by 25bp was “robust across all scenarios,” a justification that went considerably further than merely invoking the ECB’s baseline forecast.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – VIENNA (Econostream) – De Nederlandsche Bank Executive Board member Bas ter Weel on Thursday said last week’s 25bp rate hike by the European Central Bank reflected increased upside risks to medium-term inflation and evidence that the latest energy shock was becoming more persistent and broad-based.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – France’s Agence France Trésor (AFT) on Thursday raised €1.258 billion through an auction of three inflation-indexed government bonds (OAT€i).
18 June 2026 Debt Issuance News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – France’s Agence France Trésor (AFT) on Thursday raised €13.999 billion through an auction of four medium-term government bonds (OATs) maturing between 2029 and 2034.
18 June 2026 Debt Issuance News
By David Barwick – VIENNA (Econostream) – The European Central Bank firmly intends to maintain price stability but is operating under uncertainty regarding the effect on developments of the region’s last inflation episode, Austrian central bank Governor Martin Kocher said Thursday.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel said on Thursday that new forms of money, including stablecoins, tokenized deposits and central bank digital currencies, could weaken monetary policy transmission in the long run by reducing the role of banks in credit provision.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The Central Bank of Ireland warned that Irish fiscal policy should avoid unnecessarily stimulating demand, with the economy operating at capacity and externally driven inflation pressures already rising.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – VIENNA (Econostream) – The size of the European Central Bank’s interest-rate corridor could serve as a policy instrument to limit uneven monetary policy transmission across the Eurozone, Austrian central bank Governor Martin Kocher said Thursday.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – Portuguese airline Transportes Aéreos Portugueses, S.A. (TAP Air Portugal) on Thursday priced €350 million of 4.750% senior notes due June 30, 2031.
18 June 2026 Debt Issuance News
By Laura Contemori – ROME (Econostream) – Italy’s Committee for Macroprudential Policies said Thursday that the financial position of the country’s banks, households and firms remained sound overall, while the main risks continued to stem from a highly uncertain international environment.
18 June 2026 Central Bank News