By Marta Vilar – WASHINGTON (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf said on Tuesday that the ECB would need to carefully calibrate its response to the impact of the Middle East conflict to avoid exacerbating the situation.

In a panel discussion at the Semafor World Economy Summit in Washington, Makhlouf, who heads the Central Bank of Ireland, said that the ECB was “in a different place” versus where it was in late February, when inflation was on target, expectations anchored and policy rates at 2%.

He said that the ECB might take a “slightly different” approach than the US Federal Reserve in responding to the conflict due to differences in their mandates, though “in the longer term we’re playing the same game.”

The ECB should “make sure that we calculate our response and we don’t make the problem worse,” he said.

Makhlouf added that it was important to understand “what is happening on the ground, understanding not only the direct effects but the indirect effects as well as second-round effects”.

“The job has become much, much more complicated,” he said.

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