By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – In his first substantive public intervention since being confirmed as the next ECB vice president, Croatian National Bank Governor Boris Vujčić did not merely keep April alive. He leaned distinctly hawkish, normalized the idea of more than one rate hike, and suggested that the euro area may already be drifting away from the European Central Bank’s baseline and toward something closer to the ECB’s severe scenario only days after the scenario analysis was unveiled.

Plenty of Governing Council members have lately insisted that “everything is live,” but Vujčić’s version of that formula was paired with the much sharper message that stagflation risk is rising, that the ECB may “soon know” whether it must act, and that one or two hikes would not do much harm anyway.

One can understand why a nominee for ECB vice president might prefer to keep his head down, as Vujčić did for months until the appointment was done and dusted as of last Thursday. That may explain why this interview has the feel of a policymaker who has been forced to sit on his hands for an uncomfortably long time.

His key rhetorical move is to urge caution while nudging the reader inexorably toward a hawkish conclusion. Thus, the “option value of waiting a bit is high.” That seems like a retroactive prescription for last Thursday’s policy meeting; going forward, it clearly does not apply, given that almost in the same breath he says, “we’re already departing from the baseline scenario toward worst-case scenarios.”

That makes the interview more consequential than the usual “April is live” boilerplate; Vujčić is implicitly telling markets that the deterioration may be arriving faster than the forecast process can comfortably accommodate.

His line about the ECB’s two options if hikes are needed is also revealing: start earlier and move in small steps, or start later and move in bigger ones. Of course, there was never going to be a third option involving a 200-basis-point lurch following months of quiet introspection, but the observation is still useful. It indicates that once tightening appears necessary, he is already operating inside a hiking framework, not still grappling with the question of whether hiking should happen at all.

That impression is reinforced by his remark that “one or two hikes” would not do much harm to the economy. In the current context, that amounts to normalizing a short tightening sequence and brushing aside the argument that fear of growth damage should by itself stay the ECB’s hand.

Vujčić does leave himself an exit. A de-escalation, he says, and especially a reopening of the Strait of Hormuz, would reduce inflation pressure and with it the case for a hike. That is a natural escape hatch, but it does not soften the overall thrust of the interview.

The dominant signal is that the burden of proof is shifting. The question is no longer whether the Iran shock has created a tightening contingency. It is how quickly the ECB will conclude that the contingency has become the case it must manage.

There is also a broader institutional significance here. Vujčić is about to move from the Governing Council into the vice presidency, and this first outing after his confirmation suggests he wants to establish immediately that he belongs firmly in the camp that takes upside inflation risk seriously and is prepared to react before second-round effects have fully materialized.

One can wonder how comments of this sort, if a pattern emerges, might influence others’ chances at a Board seat. A vice president who has now chosen to sound very hawkish—and Vujčić has just established himself as no mere guardian of optionality—could limit the prospects of some who hope to succeed ECB President Christine Lagarde.

But observers of the ECB should also take note of the short-term consequences for policy: he has kept April very live, floated the possibility of more than one hike, played down the economic cost of limited tightening, and hinted that the baseline may already be deteriorating. That is an aggressive reading of the ECB’s post-Iran policy landscape.