ECB’s Müller: Too Soon to Take a Clear Position on October Rate Decision

24 September 2024

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – It remains too soon to express an opinion about what the European Central Bank Governing Council should do at its October monetary policy meeting, Council member Madis Müller said Friday.

In an interview with Bloomberg, Müller, who heads the Estonian central bank, said, ‘It’s early to express a clear position on the interest-rate decision in October. It will be easier to decide in December because then we’ll again have a full picture with an updated outlook.’

Müller said he wasn’t ‘totally’ excluding another rate cut next month, according to the news agency.

‘On the one hand wage growth has slowed, which implies that inflationary pressures could be lower looking ahead’, he said. ‘On the other hand, services inflation was very fast according to the latest data. I’d like to see that slow down further.’

‘From the growth perspective, the latest news perhaps implies a weaker near-term outlook’, he said. ‘There’s a bigger probability that economic growth will be lower, not higher, than the expected number as outlined in the base-case scenario recently presented by the ECB.’