ECB’s Lagarde: Will Cut Interest Rates Soon, Barring New Shocks

16 April 2024

By Isabel Teles – WASHINGTON (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Tuesday said that provided there were no surprises, it would soon be the moment for the ECB to start easing its monetary policy stance.

In an interview with CNBC on the margins of the spring meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, Lagarde said that ‘subject to no development of additional shock, it will be time to moderate the restrictive monetary policy in reasonably short order.’

The disinflationary process was developing as expected, she said, but further confidence was still needed.

‘We just need to build a bit more confidence in this disinflationary process, but if it moves according to our expectations, if we don’t have a major shock in developments, we are heading towards a moment where we have to moderate the restrictive monetary policy’, she said.

The ECB would not pre-commit to a rate path, she said: ‘There is huge uncertainty out there.’

‘We have to be attentive to those developments, we have to look at the data, we have to draw conclusions from those data’, she said.

Asked about the risk of an increase in oil prices, she said that all commodities had an impact and required attention.

‘Clearly, on energy and on food, it has a direct and rapid impact’, she said.