BRUSELAS, 15 Feb. (EUROPA PRESS) -
The President of the European Central Bank (ECB), Christine Lagarde, confirmed this Wednesday the institution's intention to raise interest rates by another 50 basis points next March to ensure the reduction of inflation to its target of 2% in the medium term and has advanced that after this increase, "the path to follow will be evaluated".
This was indicated during his speech before the plenary session of the European Parliament, where he acknowledged that, although the economic outlook is "more balanced", the ECB will continue with its strategy of maintaining "restrictive" interest rates because this will avoid the risk of an upward change in the inflationary outlook.
This rise will raise the price of money to 3.5%, while Lagarde has advanced that future decisions will depend on the data and will follow "one guideline per meeting".
To justify her intention, the president of the ECB has indicated that inflation was 8.8%, a figure that "will probably be revised upwards shortly, when taking into account the German data that had not been included in the last estimates".
"Energy prices also fell, but the previous increase continues to be felt in consumer prices and, therefore, core inflation continues to be very high," he explained, before detailing that "if energy and food, inflation is around 5.5%, as in the month of December".
Lagarde has encouraged progress in the next 12 months, before the next European elections, because "much remains" to be done in three areas: the financial integration of the euro zone, fiscal rules and digital Europe.
These are three "large-scale" projects in which progress is necessary to strengthen financial integration while the ECB guarantees "efficient and consistent" banking supervision.
"More must be done, especially if we want capital to flow and meet the ambitious objectives in terms of ecological and digital transition, without forgetting the work to complete the banking union," he stressed.
In this sense, he has urged the legislators to reach an agreement "soon" for a review of the fiscal rules that offers a more "simple and predictable" framework and with more participation of the Member States to reinforce the foundation of the economic union and monetary.
