ECB’s Lane: Maintaining Current Interest Rates to Be ‘Hotly Debated in the Coming Months’

31 January 2024

By David Barwick – ZAGREB (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Philip Lane on Wednesday said that the issue of whether to keep ECB interest rates where they are would be the subject of vigorous discussion at upcoming Governing Council meetings.

In an interview with HTV 1 – Croatian Public TV on the margins of an event Tuesday to mark the one-year anniversary of Croatia’s adoption of the euro, Lane said that the deceleration of euro area inflation was ‘progress’.

‘But we still need to make sure we will return to 2% as quickly as possible, if you like’, he said. ‘And so we will keep this rate until we are more confident that we are on our way back to 2%. But of course, that this will be hotly debated in the coming months.’

Inflation this year would ‘move closer to 2%’, making it a ‘smaller problem’ than it had been, he said.

‘But it remains a challenge for us as the European Central Bank, to make sure inflation continues to come down towards 2%’, he said. ‘So the problem is now smaller. But it is still a problem.’