ECB’s Escrivá: We Need to See Services Inflation Declining Further

14 March 2025

By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member José Luis Escrivá said on Friday that he would like to see services inflation declining further.

In an interview with Bloomberg TV, Escrivá, who heads the Banco de España, said that ‘[w]e should see some further decline in the rate in the inflation on services’, and that these data were ‘really important to examine, I would say month by month.’

Recent shocks had been unprecedented and uncertainty was now a key word, he said.

‘Risks to the central scenario on both directions are larger than normally’, he said.

Neutrality was a very ‘diffuse’ concept, he said, and determining the correct monetary policy stance depended on a number of data sets.

‘We’re now far less restrictive than we were a few months ago’, he said. ‘We’re in a situation which is much closer to normal circumstances.’

US trade policy would, in principle, create inflationary pressures, according to Escrivá, but could also dampen demand and confidence.

The ECB’s central scenario had considerable risks to both sides around it, he said.

‘The uncertainty and the risk to the central scenarios very significant’, he said. ‘This is precisely the current situation, when the risks to the central scenario on both directions are larger than normally’.