(Bloomberg) -- The European Central Bank should cut interest rates far enough to ensure they are no longer constraining economic growth, Governing Council member Fabio Panetta said.
“Restrictive monetary conditions are no longer necessary,” Panetta, the Bank of Italy governor, said on Tuesday in Milan. “We need to normalize our monetary-policy stance and move to neutral – or even expansionary territory, if necessary.”
The ECB is weighing how quickly to lower borrowing costs after its third reduction of the year last month. President Christine Lagarde has said that the pace of easing is still to be decided, despite the direction being clear.
Policymakers are widely expected to continue cutting in December, and investors are currently pricing in more moves until the deposit rate reaches 2% mid-next year, down from 3.25% at present.
A fourth quarter-point move of the year is likely next month, Estonian central-bank Governor Madis Muller said Tuesday in an interview in Tallinn.
“I wouldn’t ever want to say anything is a done deal,” he said. “The analysis, discussion and fresh forecast still lie ahead. But I think it is likely that we can again reduce interest rates in December.”
Also speaking to Bloomberg, his Greek counterpart Yannis Stournaras said Monday that a reduction by that amount is all but assured.
Borrowing costs could eventually be lowered to levels that actually stimulate the economy. In October, Bank of Finland chief Olli Rehn shared estimates by his staff that the euro area’s neutral rate is “in the range of 0.2-0.8%.” With inflation at 2%, that would imply the level that neither aids nor restricts growth at between 2.2% and 2.8%.
“We are probably a long way from the neutral rate,” Panetta said. “Lowering policy rates below the neutral level at the trough of the cycle is a standard policy prescription, which both the ECB and the Fed have adhered to in the past. The question is not whether the ECB can, but whether it must.”
Other dovish officials have also signaled support for deeper easing, particularly following Donald Trump’s election in the US, with the danger that his threatened trade tariffs will hurt global commerce and prosperity.
“In the current phase we should focus more on the sluggishness of the real economy,” Panetta said. “Without a sustained recovery, inflation risks being pushed well below target, opening up a scenario that would be difficult for monetary policy to counteract and should therefore be avoided.”
More hawkish Governing Council members such as Joachim Nagel have instead warned that economic fragmentation could present central banks with new challenges in the form of faster inflation.
Panetta also argued that the ECB needs to return to a more traditional approach to policy in other respects as well, and to stop living “day by day or meeting by meeting.”
That includes communication that “should provide more guidance on the expected evolution of our policy than has been the case in the recent past,” he said.
That jars with the views of ECB Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel, who last week warned of the dangers of using forward guidance.
--With assistance from Ott Tammik.
(Updates with more ECB officials starting in fifth paragraph.)
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