ECB concerned about inflation: minutes

According to the minutes of the ECB monetary policy meeting held in June, ECB policymakers raised some questions about whether the Eurozone economic recovery will proceed as expected, since it depends on a recovery in private consumption for which there is still no convincing evidence in the data.

Also, from the available data, some members felt that uncertainty about the outlook had increased rather than increasing confidence that the inflation rate would converge to the target of 2% by 2025.

The ECB cut three major interest rates by 25 bps in June.

However, the ECB maintained a data-dependent, meeting-by-meeting approach, and emphasized that there must be no prior commitment to a specific interest rate path.

Policymakers also confirmed that there is no change in their determination to ensure that the inflation rate sustainably returns to the 2% target in a timely manner, and that policy interest rates will be kept at a sufficiently restrictive level for as long as necessary to achieve it.

Source: European Central Bank