After raising interest rates for the first time in over a decade at their last meeting, European Central Bank policymakers are poised to launch another massive rate hike on Thursday to show their determination to tame rising inflation.
The surge in energy prices in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has increased pressure on households and pushed the pace of consumer price increases to new highs.
Eurozone inflation hit 9.1 percent in August, a record in the history of the single currency and well above the 2 percent target set by the ECB.
The “only question” for the ECB meeting is “whether there will be a 50 or 75 basis point hike,” said Carsten Brzeski, head of macro at ING Bank.
Speaking at the annual central bank symposium in Jackson Hole in late August, ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said the ECB needed to show “determination” to tame inflation.
Under this approach, the central bank would be “more responsive to the current inflationary spike, even at the risk of lower growth and higher unemployment,” she said.
– ‘One Question’ –
At its last meeting in July, the 25-member Governing Council surprised by an increase of 50 basis points, ending eight years of negative interest rates in one fell swoop.
In her speech in the United States, Schnabel stressed that people must “trust” that the ECB will restore their purchasing power.
The Frankfurt-based institution is already catching up with other central banks in the US and UK, which have begun raising rates harder and faster in response to inflation.
The ECB’s so-called forward guidance, which restricted its scope for action, was dropped. Politicians will now make their decisions “meeting-by-meeting,” announced ECB President Christine Lagarde in July.
This opened the door for the ECB to follow in the footsteps of the US Federal Reserve and raise interest rates by 75 basis points.
After August’s late-breaking inflation figures, the influential head of the Deutsche Bundesbank, Joachim Nagel, said the ECB needed a “strong rate hike in September”.
– “Even Tempo” –
“Further interest rate hikes can be expected in the coming months,” predicted the Bundesbank President.
But the ECB’s chief economist, Philip Lane, has advised his colleagues to raise interest rates “uniformly”.
Due to the “high level of uncertainty” regarding the economy and the future path of inflation, it is important not to increase “neither too slowly nor too quickly”.
In addition to its political decisions, the ECB will also publish updated economic forecasts for the euro zone.
In its latest estimates, released in June, the ECB said it expected inflation to reach 6.8 percent in 2022 before slowing to 3.5 percent next year, while growth slowed from 2.8 percent in this year to 2.1 percent in 2023.
But a more severe energy shock, as Russia cuts gas supplies to Europe, could push the eurozone into a “deeper winter recession” and keep growth at zero percent in 2023, said Frederik Ducrozet, Pictet’s head of macroeconomic research.
At the same time, rising energy costs will push inflation into near double-digits by the end of the year, he predicted.
The ECB had “no choice but to commit to faster monetary tightening as long as inflation continues to rise,” even as a recession loomed, Ducrozet said.
