By David Barwick – BRUSSELS (Econostream) - Following is the transcript of a brief chat that took place on 8 February 2024 between Econostream and Pierre Wunsch, Governor of the National Bank of Belgium and member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank, following the latter’s presentation at a public event we reported on at the time.
12 February 2024
By David Barwick – BRUSSELS (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch on Thursday said that while an argument could be made for deferring monetary policy easing until more data became available, the risks of deciding not to continue to wait were also not great.
12 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone on Monday said that monetary policy no longer had to create economic slack to get inflation under control.
12 February 2024
By David Barwick – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pablo Hernández de Cos on Monday said that Europe had to be particularly attentive to issues of suppy security and that regionalisation could supplant globalisation.
12 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pablo Hernández de Cos’ reluctance to pin a date to the ECB’s first rate cut should not obscure the fact that he is now apparently supportive of discussing the issue rather than continuing to keep it at arm’s length.
12 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The following is an overview of recent comments made by European Central Bank Governing Council members. We include only comments made since the Governing Council meeting of 25 January, but earlier comments can still be seen in versions up to that of 19 January .
12 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pablo Hernández de Cos on Sunday declined to give explicit calendar guidance as to when ECB monetary easing might start, but confirmed that disinflation was well underway and observed that the next set of projections would determine how confident policymakers could be about the outlook.
11 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Fabio Panetta on Saturday said that the moment to change the ECB’s monetary policy stance was coming soon.
10 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – Expectations of a European Central Bank interest rate cut in March or April are optimistic, according to ECB Governing Council member Mārtiņš Kazāks on Friday.
9 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Piero Cipollone on Friday said that central banks needed to keep up with innovation and technology to modernise finance.
9 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member François Villeroy de Galhau on Friday said that positive developments in inflation increased the likelihood of an interest rate cut this year.
9 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – A new forward-looking wage tracker for the euro area provided data that could be used as an additional resource to understand the inflation trajectory, according to an occasional paper published Friday by the European Central Bank.
9 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Philip Lane on Thursday said that it was necessary to wait for incoming data before considering any changes in the ECB’s monetary policy stance.
8 February 2024
By David Barwick – BRUSSELS (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Pierre Wunsch on Thursday said that euro area wage growth was not compatible with the ECB’s price stability target, but that monetary authorities were unlikely to have a perfectly clear picture when the time came to consider a cut.
8 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – After stagnating in 2023, the euro area economy is expected to start growing again from the first quarter of this year, according to the first Economic Bulletin of 2024, published Thursday by the European Central Bank.
8 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Gabriel Makhlouf on Thursday said that modifications of the ECB’s monetary policy stance would depend on data confirming that inflation was headed towards the 2% target.
8 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The European Central Bank Governing Council might not hike rates at all in 2024, or only once the year is almost over, Council member Robert Holzmann reiterated on Thursday.
8 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – The natural interest rate for the euro area, r*, has been estimated to be similar to pre-pandemic levels, according to an economic bulletin pre-release published Wednesday by the European Central Bank.
7 February 2024
By David Barwick – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel in her latest comments managed to convey the impression that she did not envision the first ECB rate cut coming too soon whilst skirting the mention of any calendar month or particular timing.
7 February 2024
By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel on Wednesday emphasised reasons not to change the ECB's monetary policy stance in the near future.
7 February 2024