By David Barwick – WASHINGTON (Econostream) – With April increasingly looking like a meeting the European Central Bank’s Governing Council is keeping alive out of convention rather than conviction, June now risks being treated as the move that inevitably follows. That may be too simplistic.

To be sure, June is no less live than April. No one listening to Latvijas Banka Governor Mārtiņš Kazāks could miss that. He told CNBC on Wednesday that he had nothing against market pricing of two 2026 rate hikes starting in June and reiterated that, if second-round effects kick in, the ECB will have to move. That is the clearest public validation yet of the market’s June view.

Yet for all his June-friendly messaging, Kazāks did not stint on caution. He said the ECB was in a “comfortable situation,” noted that core inflation had not jumped in the March data, argued that flat real rates were consistent with looking through the shock, and emphasized the need to watch labor markets, corporate repricing, and confidence indicators.

In other words, even the Council member most willing so far to validate June pricing also laid out, in the same breath, reasons to wonder whether what does not happen on April 30 would necessarily happen six weeks later.

Comments at the Peterson Institute by Banco de España Governor José Luis Escrivá also tilted toward caution rather than precommitment. Describing the environment as one of “extremely high uncertainty,” he said policymakers needed “more than ever to monitor data in real time” and noted that “so far we haven’t seen too much change” in inflation expectations. That is not a message that suggests the Council sees an April hold as naturally giving way to a June hike.

Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel’s remarks later Wednesday at the IIF point in the same direction, in some respects more forcefully. She called the current shock “particularly problematic” because it followed a long period of above-target inflation, but also stressed that pass-through depended heavily on the strength of aggregate demand, and that for a net energy importer the shock also weakened the economy, potentially making it harder for firms to pass through higher costs and for workers to win higher wages. The implication was that the risk is real, but so is the countervailing drag.

That leaves the Council still in the diagnosis phase. As Schnabel put it, “we have to weigh our policy decisions very carefully,” remain data-dependent, and determine “which of the forces prevail.” She cited inflation expectations, wage- and price-setting behavior, and the impact on aggregate demand as key variables. Crucially, she added that because the ECB had previously brought inflation back to 2% and because monetary policy was “broadly neutral,” “we can afford to take the time that is needed in order to analyze the character of this shock, and we do not need to rush into action.”

Wednesday’s public communication supports the view that a June hike is a plausible outcome if data develop in the wrong direction. But a Council that saw itself on course for June now would be doing more than invoking watchfulness, incoming data, and the absence so far of a meaningful core inflation response.

Private signaling also leaves June subject to question. One relatively influential national central bank governor who spoke to Econostream expressed the view that with June still a further six weeks away, markets would be making a mistake if they interpreted an April hold as tantamount to a June hike.

His point was not that June is off the table. It was that too much still depends on incoming data, on whether markets are correctly reading the risk of further supply disruption, and on whether the shock stays broadly contained rather than becoming more persistent and generalized. His skepticism suggests that the Council is not where markets are.

To put it succinctly, a hold in April may simply mean the ECB did not yet have enough evidence to warrant hiking. It does not follow that by June it will. June currently looks a bit like April did earlier: clearly live, but still not something the ECB is trying to lock in.

We are now wondering whether, by the time June arrives, the Council will actually judge the evidence strong enough to require action. Wednesday’s mix of public and private signaling argues against treating a June hike as inevitable.