The European Central Bank could keep interest rates on hold for more than one monetary policy meeting in a row, despite starting to lower borrowing costs for the first time in almost five years, its president Christine Lagarde has said.
Pouring cold water on the idea that a string of similar moves could soon follow last week’s quarter-percentage-point reduction in its deposit rate to 3.75 per cent, Lagarde said it “does not mean that interest rates will now move downwards in a linear fashion”.
“We are not following a pre-determined path,” the ECB president said in a joint interview with four EU newspapers. “There could also be phases in which we leave interest rates unchanged.”