The European Central Bank hasn’t yet decided what to do this month but the end of its interest-rate hiking cycle is near, according to Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau.
“Our options are open at this meeting, as they will be at the following ones,” the Bank of France governor told journalists in Paris on Friday.
“We are close — or very close — to the peak point of our interest rates,” he added. “We are still far though from the point where we could envisage cutting them.”
Officials will meet on Sept. 14 to decide whether a recent slowdown of the economy is reason enough to keep rates on hold for the first time since the ECB’s historic tightening campaign began more than a year ago. Some have signaled that they may back another hike, as inflation in the currency bloc lingers above 5%.
Whether officials decide to take the deposit rate to 4% or not, Villeroy said it’s more important to focus on the length of time that borrowing costs will stay at their peak, rather than the exact settings they arrive at.
“The duration matters more than the level,” he said.
Inflation data for the euro zone released on Thursday showed an underlying measure that officials are focusing on slowing to 5.3% in August from 5.5% in the previous month — as expected.
That led investors to raise bets that rates will stay on hold this month. Morgan Stanley changed its forecast for the outcome to predict a pause rather than another increase.
Core inflation, which strips out volatile items including energy, “seems to be starting to turn around,” Villeroy said. “This encouraging sign is still far from enough: we must and we will get inflation to 2% between now and 2025.”
Officials will have new projections for their decision this month to guide them in their decision. Villeroy’s colleague, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos, said late on Thursday that the forecasts will show the inflation outlook hasn’t changed much over the summer even though prospects for the economy worsened.
Policymakers haven’t yet drawn any conclusions on whether such an outcome would warrant another rate increase next month or a pause, he said on a panel in Santander, Spain.
“For September, the decision is open,” he said, adding that the ECB is still waiting for some data to arrive. Forecasts “for economic growth are worse than we had projected in June, while inflation projections are similar to what we had in June.”
