French central bank chief Francois Villeroy de Galhau said on Sunday that tension in the Middle East is unlikely to drive up energy prices and should not affect the European Central Bank’s (ECB) plans to begin cutting interest rates in June, per Reuters.
Key quotes
“Barring surprises, there is no need to wait much longer.”
“It should be followed by further cuts, at a pragmatic pace,”
“At the moment, the conflict is not leading to a marked rise in oil prices. If this were ever the case, we would have to analyse monetary policy for whether this shock is temporary and limited, or whether it is transmitted—beyond commodities—to underlying inflation”.
Market reaction
These comments have little to no market reaction to the Euro. The EUR/USD pair is trading at 1.0659, adding 0.03% on the day.
ECB FAQs
The European Central Bank (ECB) in Frankfurt, Germany, is the reserve bank for the Eurozone. The ECB sets interest rates and manages monetary policy for the region. The ECB primary mandate is to maintain price stability, which means keeping inflation at around 2%. Its primary tool for achieving this is by raising or lowering interest rates. Relatively high interest rates will usually result in a stronger Euro and vice versa. The ECB Governing Council makes monetary policy decisions at meetings held eight times a year. Decisions are made by heads of the Eurozone national banks and six permanent members, including the President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde.
In extreme situations, the European Central Bank can enact a policy tool called Quantitative Easing. QE is the process by which the ECB prints Euros and uses them to buy assets – usually government or corporate bonds – from banks and other financial institutions. QE usually results in a weaker Euro. QE is a last resort when simply lowering interest rates is unlikely to achieve the objective of price stability. The ECB used it during the Great Financial Crisis in 2009-11, in 2015 when inflation remained stubbornly low, as well as during the covid pandemic.
Quantitative tightening (QT) is the reverse of QE. It is undertaken after QE when an economic recovery is underway and inflation starts rising. Whilst in QE the European Central Bank (ECB) purchases government and corporate bonds from financial institutions to provide them with liquidity, in QT the ECB stops buying more bonds, and stops reinvesting the principal maturing on the bonds it already holds. It is usually positive (or bullish) for the Euro.
