By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Bundesbank President and European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel said Thursday that keeping interest rates unchanged in July was appropriate after June’s increase left policymakers well placed to assess further developments.

“It was right to keep the key ECB interest rates steady this time. The rate hike in June already put us in a good position from which we can monitor further developments closely,” Nagel said in a statement issued in his name by the Bundesbank on Thursday evening.

Nagel said that the situation in the Middle East remained “highly fragile” and that uncertainty was still “intense.”

“That’s why it is still best for the Governing Council to follow a data-dependent approach and not to pre-commit,” he said.

“We will have lots of new data in September as well as new projections. We will also reassess the outlook for inflation then,” Nagel said.