(Reuters) – European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said the euro zone was “very close” to meeting the central bank’s medium-term inflation target, according to an interview published on Monday by the Financial Times.
Earlier in December, Christine Lagarde said the central bank would cut interest rates further if inflation continued to approach its 2% target, given that there was no longer a need to curb growth.
“We are very close to the moment when we can declare that we have sustainably brought inflation back to our medium-term objective of 2%,” declared the President of the ECB to the Financial Times, while calling for remaining vigilant on the inflation of services.
“You know, the latest inflation estimate is 2.2%,” she added. “But services inflation is still at 3.9% and is not moving much. It is hovering around 4%, although down slightly.”
Christine Lagarde said she opposed Europe’s retaliation to threats of tariffs by future US President Donald Trump.
“I said retaliation was the wrong approach because I think blanket trade restrictions followed by retaliation and this confrontational way of dealing with trade is just bad for the global economy as a whole,” he said. she added.
(Bipasha Dey and Shubham Kalia; Bertrand De Meyer, edited by Augustin Turpin)
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