At least some members of the European Central Bank's governing council don't want you to conclude that their most recent rate hike was the last one. From Bloomberg:
European Central Bank council member John Hurley said the bank hasn't decided on the future course of interest rates in the dozen euro nations after last week lifting borrowing costs for the first time in five years.
"The governing council has not taken any `ex ante' decision to engage in a series of interest rate increases,'' Hurley said today in a speech at the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia. ``It will continue to monitor all developments closely.''...
ECB chief economist Otmar Issing today suggested the bank hasn't finished raising rates. Issing said the bank is ready to act "whenever we see a threat to price stability.''
And from Reuters:
%20headquarters.%20ECB%20policymakers%20said%20on%20Thursday%20the%20bank%20had%20no%20plans%20for%20a%20string%20of%20interest%20rate%20increases,%20although%20it%20remained%20poised%20to%20tighten%20credit%20again%20if%20inflation%20pressures%20threatened.%20REUTERS/c){kind=link}
Lorenzo Bini Smaghi, ECB Executive Board, said the ECB's quarter percentage point rate hike last week, its first in five years, was designed to mop up extra cash in the euro zone.
"We are not entering a tightening cycle. We are just taking away excessive liquidity," Bini Smaghi told reporters after delivering a speech in Berlin.
But he roiled financial markets earlier by saying that the rate hike to 2.25 percent was not the full cure for inflationary dangers in the euro zone, while Bundesbank President Axel Weber said price risks remain even after the Dec. 1 credit tightening, which was smaller than he considered feasible.
"I will not conceal that I could have thoroughly imagined a somewhat stronger normalisation of the interest rate level," Weber told a German newspaper.
The plot thickens.