By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Following is the full transcript of the interview conducted by Econostream on 24 March 2026 with Mārtiņš Kazāks, Governor of Latvijas Banka and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank:
25 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – An early interest rate move by the European Central Bank would be warranted if inflation became entrenched and spread beyond energy into the rest of the economy, according to ECB Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks.
25 March 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Álvaro Santos Pereira said on Wednesday that it is “more than premature” to speculate about future interest rate moves.
25 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone said Tuesday that the ECB was stepping up technical preparations for a possible digital euro launch in 2029, with a pilot due to begin in the second half of 2027 if EU legislation is adopted this year.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Olaf Sleijpen said on Tuesday that policymakers will have more information on potential second-round effects from the energy price shock by the 30 April meeting, though the overall picture will remain incomplete.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde said on Tuesday that the surge in energy prices linked to the Middle East conflict would have “ripple effects” within months.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member François Villeroy de Galhau on Tuesday said that the ECB was responsible for preventing second-round effects from the latest energy shock and was well positioned to do so if necessary.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Martin Kocher said Tuesday that policymakers were watching closely for second-round effects from the recent energy shock, saying these were what mattered for the medium-term inflation path and stressing that the goal remained to return inflation to 2%.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) - After the Iran conflict erupted on February 28, markets moved quickly to reprice the outlook for rates, increasingly factoring in ECB hikes. Our ECB Tone Meter , however, told a different story, remaining broadly neutral and only edging higher after the Governing Council meeting on March 19.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks on Tuesday said the ECB would raise interest rates if the latest energy shock began feeding through into broader inflation, while declining to rule out action as soon as next month.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – In his first substantive public intervention since being confirmed as the next ECB vice president, Croatian National Bank Governor Boris Vujčić did not merely keep April alive. He leaned distinctly hawkish, normalized the idea of more than one rate hike, and suggested that the euro area may already be drifting away from the European Central Bank’s baseline and toward something closer to the ECB’s severe scenario only days after the scenario analysis was unveiled.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Boris Vujčić on Tuesday said the ECB had to remain “very agile and vigilant” as the Iran war pushed the euro area closer to stagflation risk, while making clear that policymakers would soon know whether higher interest rates were needed.
24 March 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Dimitar Radev said on Monday that the ECB stands ready to “act decisively” while remaining “measured,” noting that there are already “some indications” of second-round effects stemming from the surge in energy prices linked to the Middle East conflict.
23 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Chief Economist Philip Lane on Monday said artificial intelligence could eventually reshape productivity, investment, employment and the natural rate of interest in the euro area, but that its monetary-policy implications remained too uncertain to support any mechanical conclusion.
23 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone on Monday said Europe would need tokenized central bank money, closer public-private cooperation and a stronger legal framework if it wanted to scale tokenized financial markets and turn an early lead into lasting advantage.
23 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Peter Kažimír said Monday that future policy decisions would depend crucially on how the situation in the Middle East evolved, warning that the war in Iran posed a clear risk of higher inflation and slower economic growth.
23 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos’ interview with Spanish daily El Mundo on Monday was no overt attempt to prepare markets for an April rate hike, given how closely he hewed to the meeting-by-meeting, data-dependent line. And yet, the interview does nothing to make such a decision look less conceivable.
23 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – One day after European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde’s press conference, the flow of follow-up comments has not produced a clear consensus for action at the April 30 meeting. But it has made it clearer that a hike is a very live contingency.
20 March 2026 Central Bank News
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Joachim Nagel said Friday that the Iran war had sharply raised inflation uncertainty via energy prices and required policymakers to remain “very vigilant,” while judging the Governing Council’s decision a day earlier to leave rates unchanged as appropriate for now.
20 March 2026 Central Bank News
By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – Econostream’s ECB Tone Meter showed a notable hawkish shift in the Governing Council this week, with only a minimal shift in the same direction from the Executive Board.
20 March 2026 Central Bank News