The European Central Bank could possibly cut rates by a total of 100 basis points or 1% this year but there was still no consensus within euro zone’s central bank on that, ECB’s policymaker Yannis Stournaras said in a newspaper interview released on Sunday.
“Personally, I believe that cutting rates four times this year, by 25 basis points each, is possible,” Stournaras told Greek newspaper Proto Thema.
However, not everybody in the ECB shares that view yet. “Some colleagues are more sceptical and they think that rate cuts should be more moderate,” he added.
Stournaras said last week that it seemed there was a consensus within the ECB for a rate cut in June and that the bank had no reason to wait for the Federal Reserve in the United States to cut rates first.
In a bid to tame inflation, the ECB has pushed through a number of interest rate increases since the summer of 2022, increasing its key rate by 4.5 percentage points. – Reuters
