(Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank Vice President Luis de Guindos said more reductions in interest rates are on the way if policymakers’ forecasts for inflation hold.
The trajectory of any future cuts “will depend on the evolution of inflation,” Guindos told Nordic newspaper Helsingin Sanomat. He said it’s difficult to make predictions about the specific number and size of moves.
“We have cut interest rates three times and the trajectory of our monetary policy is clear,” Guindos said in an interview published Tuesday. “If our projections are confirmed, we will continue making our monetary policy stance less restrictive.”
Next month’s final ECB policy meeting of the year is set to bring another reduction in the deposit rate, probably to 3%. Most officials aren’t keen on mapping out what will happen beyond that, with Guindos citing “huge uncertainty.”
Guindos’s remarks come after ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane called on Monday for policymakers to remain “open-minded” on the path for borrowing costs — a sentiment shared by Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and Ireland’s Gabriel Makhlouf.
Finland’s Olli Rehn also highlighted that a rate move next month looks likely, reiterating earlier comments.
“If the latest statistical data and the new broad forecast update support the current inflation and growth outlook, further rate cuts are warranted at the December meeting,” he told lawmakers in Helsinki on Tuesday, adding that rates should move from restrictive to neutral in late winter.
In October, he had said that experts at the Bank of Finland currently estimate the euro area natural rate to be “in the range of 0.2-0.8%.” With an inflation target of 2%, that would mean the nominal neutral rate, that neither stimulates nor restricts the economy, to be between 2.2% and 2.8%.
“It is clear that we will keep making our monetary-policy stance less restrictive, because inflation is getting closer to our target,” Guindos said, also citing the weak outlook for the 20-nation euro-zone economy. He called that “one of the main risks we see now.”
Speaking separately in Lisbon, Portugal’s Mario Centeno highlighted that “Europe is an economy that is stagnant — Europe doesn’t grow.”
“This stagnation of Europe is the sacrifice that Europeans are paying to fight inflation,” he said.
In the Helsingin Sanomat interview, Guindos also repeated warnings on the fallout from Donald Trump’s re-election and the trade tariffs that may ensue.
“Eventually, this could turn into a trade war, which would be extremely detrimental to the world economy,” he said.
Policymakers across Europe have highlighted that Trump’s protectionist stance could hurt the economy.
France’s Francois Villeroy de Galhau said Tuesday that the inflation effect from the next US president’s trade policy might be limited on the EU but added that long-term rates tend to move across the Atlantic.
--With assistance from Joao Lima, Henrique Almeida, Leo Laikola, William Horobin and James Regan.
(Updates with Rehn starting in sixth paragraph, Villeroy in final.)
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