ECB Will Know More in December, But All Options Open, Guindos Says

(Bloomberg) -- The European Central Bank will be better informed on the state of the economy and inflation at its final meeting of the year, but could still move on interest rates next month, according to Vice President Luis de Guindos.

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“It’s true to say that in December, we will have more information than in October,” he told Expresso newspaper in an interview, highlighting new quarterly forecasts published then. “But, you know, we have left the door totally open. We want to maintain our optionality, and that will depend on the evolution of the data.”

The ECB last week lowered borrowing costs for a second time. Markets are betting on another move in December and are about evenly split on an additional step next month. Guindos’s comments in the interview — conducted before the Federal Reserve’s half-point cut on Wednesday — chime with recent remarks from President Christine Lagarde that hint at a pause in October.

Consumer-price growth in the euro area has been slowing, though services inflation remains the “weak spot,” Guindos said, adding that this is because “wage dynamics have been quite elevated.”

“There is some moderation now, but wages, or compensation per employee, have been growing at a rate of over 4%,” he said.

He also highlighted that “September inflation data is expected to look very positive due to base effects, but at the same time, in the last quarter of the year inflation will go up because of base effects.”

Speaking later on Friday, Lagarde said again that inflation is projected to return to the 2% target over the second half of 2025.

“Considering the size of the inflation shock, this unwinding is remarkable,” she said in a speech in Washington. “But the uncertainty ahead is still profound,” she added, arguing the economy is undergoing “transformational changes” that the ECB needs to analyze and understand.

--With assistance from Viktoria Dendrinou.

(Updates with Lagarde starting in seventh paragraph.)

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