ECB’s Stournaras: ‘It Seems That We Will Continue’ Cutting Interest Rates

5 May 2025

By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Yannis Stournaras on Monday said that the ECB would evidently go on easing monetary policy.

In an on-stage discussion at the 5th OT Forum in Athens, Stournaras, who heads the Bank of Greece, said of ECB rate cutting, ‘It seems that we will continue, but of course everything depends.’

‘We have said that our approach will be in every meeting, to look at the data and to decide’, he continued. ‘This is precisely because there is a great deal of uncertainty and when there is a lot of uncertainty, you don't move forward with big steps, nor do you make big promises, because you might fall out.’

The tariffs would probably only lead to temporarily higher US inflation, as the economic stagnation they would also cause would counter upward pressure on prices, he said.

Even if Europe were to impose countermeasures, it would do so ‘selectively, it will not create inflation’, he said.

The world was in ‘a period of very great uncertainty’ stemming from ‘the imposition of tariffs or rather from the desire to impose tariffs, because we do not yet know where the dust will settle’, he said.

US President Donald Trump would probably ‘back down’ and indeed already did, Stournaras observed. Still, uncertainty would now remain high, he said.