Holdouts on the European Central Bank’s governing council disagree with its new guidance on the future path of policy because they fear it understates the risk of rising inflation, according to the minutes of its latest policy meeting.
The ECB published revised forward guidance last month to incorporate the findings of its strategy review, which altered its primary policy target to make it more tolerant of above-target inflation.
The new wording states that interest rates will not rise until the ECB forecasts that inflation will reach its 2 per cent target “well ahead” of its projection horizon and that policy rates will be raised only if the evidence is sufficient to expect that the pace of price growth will persist “durably”. It also states that not only headline inflation, but also underlying inflation, should be heading towards 2 per cent.