By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Despite the weekend and the May 1 holiday in almost all euro area countries, a third of the European Central Bank’s Governing Council has spoken publicly since President Christine Lagarde’s press conference on Thursday. The message has come across: June is very live.
4 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch on Monday said Europe was naive if it continued to apply open-market and state-aid rules designed for a global economy that no longer existed.
4 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Yannis Stournaras on Sunday said the ECB’s policy response to the Middle East shock would depend on the intensity, duration and transmission channels of the disruption, and that a robust response would be needed if inflation deviated significantly and persistently from target.
3 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos on Sunday said the current inflation shock was very different from that of 2021 and 2022 and that the ECB had been right to wait before deciding on any interest rate hike.
3 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Olli Rehn on Saturday said the ECB would have to react quickly and decisively if higher energy prices began feeding into wages and other prices and inflation expectations started rising.
2 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf on Friday said he was concerned about a higher-for-longer energy price scenario and would closely monitor indirect effects on inflation from the Middle East war.
1 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel on Friday said the ECB should respond in June if the inflation outlook did not improve markedly, warning that developments were less favorable than assumed in the central bank’s earlier baseline scenario.
1 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Madis Müller said the ECB had not yet needed to raise interest rates this week, but that it was increasingly likely it would have to do so later.
1 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Martin Kocher said the central bank was ready to adjust monetary policy quickly and decisively if necessary, as the Middle East war had worsened the inflation outlook and raised the risk of longer-lasting price pressures.
1 May 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Primož Dolenc said Friday that current conditions had allowed the ECB to keep interest rates unchanged on Thursday, but that the Governing Council would re-examine the situation at coming meetings as more data became available and the course of the Middle East war became clearer.
1 May 2026
By Marta Vilar – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday that Governing Council members had discussed a possible interest rate hike at the latest meeting, characterizing the general direction of policy as evident and declaring June the right moment to reassess conditions.
30 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde succeeded with great skill in making Thursday’s hold by the Governing Council sound hawkish and cautious at the same time. She made clear why, absent a favorable turn in the Middle East war, the next serious policy question is likely to be when the ECB tightens, not whether it still needs to.
30 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – As expected, the European Central Bank did not raise rates on Thursday, but it did not use the announcement of its rate decision to make the hold sound comfortable.
30 April 2026
By Marta Vilar – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank’s Governing Council on Thursday left its key interest rates unchanged, while warning that risks arising from the energy shock are increasing on both sides: inflation could rise more than expected, and economic growth could weaken further.
30 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank’s quiet period is intended to steady market expectations about monetary policy decisions by prohibiting communication in the seven days before a Governing Council meeting. In the current environment, it has the opposite effect, and that is just one of its drawbacks.
30 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank does not need to feel obliged by markets on Thursday into explicitly validating June rate hike expectations, let alone a 50bp move. But after the latest inflation expectations data and Tuesday’s market reaction, a dovish tone from ECB President Christine Lagarde would fit the moment poorly, even if sounding overly hawkish would also carry risks.
29 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Over the last month, the European Central Bank has laid the groundwork for a hold at this week’s Governing Council monetary policy meeting. If the three key last-minute data points—namely euro area GDP and inflation as well as the ECB’s corporate telephone survey—do not deliver a major surprise, then a unanimous hold on Thursday still looks like the most likely outcome.
28 April 2026
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – The European Central Bank lagged markets in turning hawkish after the Middle East conflict began and is already retreating from that stance, even as investors continue to price in two rate hikes for 2026, having only recently dropped expectations of an April move. This shift is clearly reflected in Econostream’s ECB Tone Meter and we explain it in this piece.
28 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank’s latest Consumer Expectations Survey makes a hold by the Governing Council on Thursday a harder sell, but does not make a rate hike unavoidable.
28 April 2026
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Eurozone consumers’ inflation expectations rose in March, including at the three-year horizon, while growth expectations worsened and expected unemployment increased, the European Central Bank said in its latest Consumer Expectations Survey, released Tuesday.
28 April 2026