MNI BRIEF: Reasons To Keep Cutting “Reinforced” -ECB Cipollone

Developments and new data since the March Governing Council meeting have reinforced the argument for the European Central Bank to continue cutting interest rates, ECB executive board member Piero Cipollone said in an interview with Expansion published Monday. 

The recent fall in energy prices and the appreciation of the euro, along with the recent rise in borrowing costs at the longer-end of the yield curve erase inflation concerns from the last ECB projections round, “with the information we have makes likely that inflation target gets hit before the projections,” he said.

 Cipollone said that the ECB still has space to keep lowering interest rates and noticed that monetary should avoid keeping economic growth below potential if it is not necessary for dampening inflation. 

Bank of Finland Governor Olli Rehn discussed many of these issues with MNI in a recent Connect livestream event.