Inflation undershoots to jumbo cuts: What 10 European Central Bank members said this week
After the European Central Bank cut interest rates for the third time this year — and inflation fell below target — all eyes are now on policymakers' next move.
A slew of Governing Council members spoke to CNBC's Karen Tso at the International Monetary Fund's annual meeting in Washington, D.C. this week. We asked them about the inflation outlook, the chances of a jumbo 50-basis-point interest cut in December, and more.
On a 50-basis-point rate cut: "Well, everything should be on the table, you know, given what the data tells us. But we will have that discussion in December, and we will have the discussion then early next year, and from meeting to meeting ... With us approaching the 2% target, and with the economy being quite weak for the rates, the way is down at 3.25, we are still quite considerably in the restrictive territory.
"So easing up the pressure from the rates, of course, is what we would need to do, and this is what we would do. But of course, you know, we need to see the data ... There is both 0% cut, 25 basis point cut, you know, and there is also perhaps a bigger cut possibility, but that will all depend upon data."
"Well, if you say you're data dependent, you are data dependent. I don't want to anticipate on what the data are going to tell us. There might be discussion, indeed, on whether we need to remove restriction faster than we thought, or not. Again, depending on the data. A 50-point move would be a big move, so I think it would only be justified if we have data, which would be, you know, going down on inflation. But probably also in terms of GDP growth going in the wrong direction, which is not really what we see today.
"... I'm not excluding anything, but we've started quite early in cutting rates. I