ECB’s Lagarde: Wage Data Encouraging, but More Confidence Needed

23 February 2024

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Friday said that the ECB still needed more confidence in the disinflation process, however encouraging recent wage data were.

Speaking to media during the Informal Ecofin in Ghent, Belgium, Lagarde said, ‘The fourth-quarter wage numbers are obviously encouraging numbers’, but added, ‘The Governing Council needs to be more confident that the disinflation process that we are observing will be sustainable and will take us to the 2% medium term target.’

Wage data available during the first quarter of 2024 would be key to determining if the ECB was confident enough to move on to the next steps, she said.

‘There are many sectors and employees that are covered by negotiations that will be completed in the course of the first quarter of 2024’, she said. ‘I think that those numbers will — especially if they continue to be encouraging — will be important for us to assess going forward in order to reach confidence.’

The ECB’s monetary policy decisions were independent from the Fed’s, she said.

‘We are determined to continue to be data-dependent and independent in the assessment that we make and in the policy decision that we approve’, she said.