By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde on Monday rejected the idea that the Governing Council’s June rate increase was an “insurance hike”, saying the move was based on the inflation outlook and justified across all scenarios considered.
29 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – With the notable exception of our interview today with European Central Bank Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks, markets and the ECB have been sending somewhat different messages recently. While investors now see the next Governing Council meeting as very unlikely to bring any policy change, public rhetoric from some of those involved in the decision has not moved nearly as far.
29 June 2026
By David Barwick - FRANKFURT (Econostream) - Following is a transcript of the interview conducted by Econostream on 26 June 2026 with Mārtiņš Kazāks, Governor of Latvijas Banka and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank:
29 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank can afford to wait before deciding whether further monetary policy tightening is needed, with recent developments having sharply reduced the probability of negative scenarios and removed any need to rush into another move, ECB Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks said.
29 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Bank for International Settlements General Manager Pablo Hernández de Cos on Thursday said central banks should remain focused on price stability and ready to act if inflation expectations show signs of de-anchoring, while noting that the monetary policy response to the Middle East energy shock depended on its magnitude.
28 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel on Saturday presented the case for further monetary policy tightening, with her slides saying that the ECB was expected to raise interest rates further to bring inflation back to its 2% target over the medium term.
27 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – Econostream’s ECB Tone Meter continued to decline in both its Governing Council and Executive Board measures, as policymakers have generally refrained from signaling that the ECB should hike interest rates at its next meeting.
26 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – Eurozone consumers’ short-term inflation expectations fell markedly in May, while their assessment of inflation for three and five years ahead remained unchanged, the European Central Bank said on Friday.
26 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – Following is the full transcript of the interview conducted by Econostream on 19 June 2026 with Denis Beau, deputy governor of the Banque de France and designated chair of the ACPR.
25 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – The European banking framework has become unnecessarily complex in some areas and concerns about the credibility of European supervision should no longer stand in the way of efforts to simplify regulation and supervision, according to Banque de France Deputy Governor Denis Beau.
25 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel’s interview with Die Zeit is hawkish, at first glance perhaps surprisingly so, but closer inspection argues against overinterpretation.
25 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Ante Žigman said Wednesday that the peace agreement, the reopening of the Strait of Hormuz and the fall in oil prices would have a positive effect on inflation, even as he defended the ECB’s latest rate hike as necessary to bring price pressures under control.
24 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel on Wednesday said further rate hikes would be needed from today’s perspective to return inflation to the ECB’s 2% target over the medium term.
24 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank’s July rate decision will depend less on whether the Middle East shock has formally eased than on whether the shock is still working its way into the Eurozone inflation process.
24 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel on Wednesday said the digital euro should become a core element of payments in Europe, arguing that it would modernize central bank money, support European sovereignty and help Europe compete in digital finance.
24 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – LONDON (Econostream) – European Central Bank Vice President Boris Vujčić said on Tuesday that the ECB was not prepared to provide forward guidance and wanted to keep "every meeting live."
23 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – LONDON (Econostream) – European Central Bank Vice President Boris Vujčić said on Tuesday that the latest energy futures curve was tracking somewhere between the ECB's milder and baseline scenarios, while stressing that uncertainty remained elevated.
23 June 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Peter Kažimír on Tuesday said the direction of ECB monetary policy was clear and that the central bank still had work to do, while stressing that the timing of any further action would depend on incoming data.
23 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane said on Tuesday that the ECB raised interest rates in June because failing to respond to the energy shock risked allowing it to evolve into a broader and more persistent inflation problem, adding that policymakers remained mindful of the negative effects of higher prices on economic activity.
23 June 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member José Luis Escrivá said on Tuesday that policymakers had assigned a higher probability in recent weeks to a diplomatic resolution of the conflict in the Middle East.
23 June 2026