(Bloomberg) -- The European Central Bank isn’t lowering interest rates too slowly and will maintain its measured approach to easing monetary policy, President Christine Lagarde told CNBC.
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“We do not see ourselves behind the curve,” Lagarde said Wednesday in an interview in Davos, where she’s attending the World Economic Forum. “We are on this sort of regular, gradual path.”
While elevated services inflation and strong wage gains remain a worry, the 2% price target “is in sight, the disinflationary process continues,” Lagarde said. The ECB isn’t “overly concerned” about the knock-on effects for Europe should President Donald Trump’s economic plans stoke US inflation.
The comments come on the final day before a week-long quiet period preceding the ECB’s next policy meeting, where another quarter-point reduction – following four in 2024 — is widely expected.
Officials from across the hawk-dove spectrum have signaled further moves after January to bring rates to levels that neither restrict nor stimulate economic activity by mid-2025, without pre-committing given still elevated uncertainty.
Many policymakers see this neutral level for the key deposit rate — now at 3% — between 2% and 2.5%. Lagarde put it at 1.75%-2.25%.
“When we get closer to that, the debate will be a little bit hotter,” she said.
Despite an uptick at end-2024, the ECB expects inflation to sustainably reach its 2% target in the course of the year, though rising energy prices and a weaker euro still pose risks. The economy, meanwhile, is faltering.
Lagarde reiterated that risks to growth are to the downside.
Earlier Wednesday, Dutch central-bank chief Klaas Knot told Bloomberg Television that he’s comfortable with market bets for rate cuts at the next two meetings but said he’s “not convinced yet that we need to go into stimulative mode.”
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