FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — European Central Bank President Christine Lagarde warned Tuesday that inflation is holding its grip on the economy and underlined that the bank intends to raise rates high enough to “break this persistence.”
Lagarde acknowledged that inflation has fallen from all-time highs last year as energy prices plunged and the bank rolled out a rapid series of rate increases, which are meant to ease price spikes by making it more expensive for consumers and businesses to borrow and spend.
“We are seeing a decline in the inflation rate as the shocks that originally drove up inflation wane and our monetary policy actions are transmitted to the economy,” she said in a speech opening the ECB’s annual policy conference in Sintra, Portugal.
Chair Jerome Powell reiterated that the Federal Reserve will likely raise interest rates at least once more this year because of persistently high inflation in the economy’s service sector and the surprisingly tight job market.
The number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits remained elevated last week, a possible sign that the Federal Reserve’s rate hikes are beginning to cool a still-strong labor market.
Turkey’s central bank has delivered a large interest rate increase, signaling a shift toward more conventional economic policies to counter sky-high inflation.
Fears that the British economy is heading for recession have mounted sharply after the Bank of England raised borrowing costs by more than anticipated.
“But the pass-through of those shocks is still ongoing, making the decline in inflation slower and the inflation process more persistent,” Lagarde added.
Businesses initially passed on their rising costs by charging customers higher prices, a phase that is starting to wane. Now, with unemployment at record lows, workers are demanding higher wages to make up for lost purchasing power — threatening to keep pushing up inflation in a wage-price spiral that the bank must prevent.
Workers, Lagarde said, “have so far lost out from the inflation shock, seeing large real wage declines, which is triggering a sustained wage catch-up process as they try to recover their losses. This is pushing up other measures of underlying inflation.”
She said the ECB needs “to address this dynamic decisively” by raising rates as far as needed. The bank would discourage “expectations of a too-rapid policy reversal” and keep rates high for as long as needed, Lagarde said.
Inflation in the 20 countries that use the euro currency came in at 6.1% in May, heading down from a peak of 10.6% in October after declines in energy prices that surged after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
But inflation is well above the bank’s target of 2% considered best for the economy. And core inflation — which excludes volatile food and fuel prices — is stubbornly high at 5.3%. New inflation figures are to be published Friday, with analysts at Deutsche Bank foreseeing another decline in overall inflation to 5.8%.
The bank is expected to raise interest rates again by a quarter-percentage point at its next rate-setting meeting on July 27.
Lagarde all but promised such a hike at the bank’s June 15 meeting, repeating in her speech Tuesday that “barring a material change to the outlook, we will continue to increase rates in July.”
Some members of the ECB’s rate-setting council also have indicated that borrowing costs could keep rising at subsequent meetings.
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