By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Martin Kocher on Wednesday said the ECB’s coming meetings would likely be about whether to leave monetary policy unchanged or raise interest rates further.

Kocher, who heads Austria’s central bank, told Bloomberg on the sidelines of the ECB’s annual Forum on Central Banking in Sintra, Portugal, that the inflation threat had eased but had not disappeared.

“In the coming meetings, the decision will most likely be whether to stick with our current monetary policy or to raise interest rates further”, he said. “The inflation threat hasn’t been completely contained yet, but it has definitely diminished, at least in the short term.”

Kocher said inflation could prove more persistent even if the conflict does not flare up again.

“It’s possible that the current price shock will be enough to cause some persistence in inflation”, he said. “That will depend primarily on what the wage agreements look like this fall.”