Christine Lagarde wants to be optimistic. “We are getting closer to the goal” of 2% inflation, having “covered a lot of ground and made a lot of progress in this fight against inflation”, declared the President of the European Central Bank (ECB), on Sunday July 30 , in an interview with Le Figaro.
“Obviously, monetary policy has started to work to bring inflation down. We see it in the credit figures, both on interest rates – our fellow citizens know this – and on the volumes of credit which are falling, as well as on the demand for credit from companies. We are starting to see it also in the real economy, in real estate or in terms of investment,” she said.
In contrast, Christine Lagarde remained vague regarding speculation around a pause on rate hikes after September. “There may be a further increase in policy rates, or perhaps a pause,” she said.
“A pause, whatever the date, in September or later, would not necessarily be definitive,” she warned, however, recalling that this would require that “inflation be brought down sustainably to its target” of 2%.
The rise in prices has certainly slowed down in recent months, while the European Central Bank has multiplied rate hikes to slow inflation, but it remains at 5.5% in June over one year in the euro zone.
