President of the European Central Bank

The European Central Bank (ECB) could hike interest rates again or pause at its next meeting and any decision will depend on the latest data, president Christine Lagarde has said.

The central bank for the 20 countries that use the euro lifted borrowing costs for the ninth consecutive time on July 28 as it fights stubbornly high inflation.

In Washington they paused; in Frankfurt they hiked; and in Beijing, they cut.

Central bankers in three of the world's key economic regions have unveiled divergent monetary policies this week as they each contend with their own challenges.

European Central Bank (ECB) chief Christine Lagarde has said that interest rates need to continue rising at a "steady pace" in order to avoid inflation becoming entrenched.

While energy prices have recently come down, Lagarde said underlying inflation continues to rise.

The Euro continued to fall on Wednesday, hitting a new 20-year low below US$1.0200 and is on track to reach the cash level (1.0000) soon on growing concerns that Russia may cut off supplies of gas to Europe, contributing to the entry of the Eurozone into recession, which would make it difficult for the ECB to carry out its planned policy of raising interest rates to control record inflation.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is set to draw a line under its massive bond-buying stimulus program at a meeting on June 9, as inflation in the eurozone soars to all-time highs.

The European Central Bank pushed back on Thursday at a German court's attempt to curb its power to buy government bonds, saying it was "more determined than ever" to pull the eurozone out of its worst economic crisis in nearly a century.

The European Central Bank tweaked policy around the edges on Thursday but kept the door wide open to further stimulus — including potentially controversial purchases of junk debt — to help an economy ravaged by the coronavirus pandemic.

The European Central Bank (ECB) is not expected to take additional measures and could implement a "wait-and-see" policy amid the coronavirus crisis, according to economists.

Europe should not get hung up on the idea of issuing coronabonds through a specially created European rescue fund, ECB President Christine Lagarde said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.
"I don't think that we should get fixated on 'coronabonds'. In Europe, things take a bit more time than we would like, but we always find a solution," she told French daily Le Parisien.

"You…. start your term with … a system in need of reassurance that Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) are ready to be used, if need be." This is what we said in July 2019 when we wrote the memo to the incoming ECB president.* What we did not know back then is just how quickly she would have to contemplate the need.