The European Central Bank can’t declare that its fight against inflation is over just yet, according to Governing Council member Joachim Nagel.
Price pressures remain “too high” across the 20-nation euro zone, and “upside risks are still pretty present,” the Bundesbank president said at an event on the sidelines of the International Monetary Fund’s annual meetings in Marrakech. It’s “too early to celebrate victory.”
While inflation rates have fallen quickly, the region’s average remains far above the ECB’s 2% target, and projections don’t foresee it returning there for another two years. That prospect is keeping policymakers on alert, even as they’ve paused raising borrowing costs after 10 consecutive hikes.
The ECB will make sure interst rates are “sufficiently high for sufficiently long,” Nagel said. “The inflation beast has to be tamed.”
