ECB battle lines shift as Lagarde urged to speed up rate hikes
Tensions among officials may be already materializing, with ECB President Christine Lagarde’s blog post on Monday signaling a timetable of two quarter-point increases in July and September irking more hawkish officials who craved at least the option for a bigger hike,. Picture: Alex Kraus
The European Central Bank might be slower than its peers to embrace the idea of hiking interest rates, but its public debate over how aggressively to act is suddenly shifting very fast indeed.
Just three weeks ago, policy makers had only just started to coalesce around a first move in July. Now they are openly discussing a half-point increase, whether to end sub-zero borrowing costs as soon as this year and then where to go next.
