Here's what 12 European Central Bank members said about interest rates this week

A host of economists and monetary policymakers gathered in New York this week for the International Monetary Fund's Spring Meetings — including numerous decision-makers from the European Central Bank.

CNBC spoke to 12 members of the ECB's Governing Council at the event to unpack their latest views on the interest rate outlook and inflationary pressures, after euro zone price rises cooled to 2.4% in March.

The ECB opted to hold rates steady in April and next meets to vote on monetary policy on June 6.

The ECB's figurehead delivered a firm message that reflected her statements in recent press conferences: markets should expect an interest rate cut soon, barring major surprises.

"We just need to build a bit more confidence in this disinflationary process, but if it moves according to our expectations, if we don't have a major shock in development, we are heading towards a moment where we have to moderate the restrictive monetary policy," Lagarde told CNBC's Sara Eisen.

According to Villeroy, the ECB should cut in June so that higher rates do not cause too much damage to the euro area economy, which last year narrowly avoided a recession but fell into stagnation.

Barring a major surprise before the next Governing Council in early June, "we should cut rates because we are now confident enough and increasingly confident about the disinflationary path in the euro area," Villeroy told CNBC's Karen Tso.

"There is now a very large consensus that it is time to take this insurance more or less against what I would call the second risk. The first risk is to act too early and to let inflation go upwards again and this would be a danger," he said. "But the second risk would be to be behind the curve and to pay a too high cost in terms of