ECB’s Kazāks: End of Easing Cycle Could be Near, But Uncertainty Could Change Outlook

16 May 2025

By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks said on Friday that the end of the easing cycle might be near but that high uncertainty had the potential to change the policy outlook.

In an interview with CNBC, Kazāks, who heads the Latvijas Banka, said that the ECB was ‘by and large, within the baseline scenario’ and that if the baseline were to materialise, ‘then I think we are relatively close to the terminal rate already.’

A ‘couple’ more rate cuts were possible, but that would depend on how trade tensions develop, he suggested.

Inflation was close to what was expected as the uptick in services inflation was ‘within the baseline’, he said.

From today’s perspective and given current data, ‘market pricing for the next meeting is relatively appropriate in my view, but later on we’ll see’, he said.

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