ECB Governing council member Robert Holzmann said he would like to have 50bps rates hikes in all of the March, May, June and July meetings.

“I expect it to take a very long time for inflation to come down,” the Austrian central bank Governor told Handelsblatt. “My hope is that within the next 12 months we will have reached the peak of interest rates.”

“If we want to get inflation back to two percent in the foreseeable future, we have to be restrictive,” Holzmann said, arguing that only a 4% deposit rate will start restricting growth.

ECB Chief Economist Philip Lane indicated that it’s “appropriate” to raise interest rates further beyond March meeting. But the “exact calibration” will depend on the upcoming macroeconomic projections and incoming data on inflation and the monetary transmission mechanism.

Lane said in a speech, “the current information on underlying inflation pressures suggests that it will be appropriate to raise rates further beyond our March meeting”.

“By bringing the key policy rates to a sufficiently restrictive level and fostering a period of below-trend growth through the dampening of demand, we will counter-act above-target medium-term inflation pressures and also ensure that the prolonged phase of above-target inflation does not become embedded through a de-anchoring of inflation expectations,” he explained.

Full speech here.

ECB President Christine Lagarde reiterated that it’s “very, very likely” for the central bank to raise interest rate by 50bps this month. The decision was indicated at the last monetary policy meeting, and all recent economic indicators are confirming that this interest rate hike is likely.

“It is very likely that we will raise interest rates by 50 basis points,” she said in an interview published on Sunday. “This was a decision that was indicated at our last monetary policy meeting and all the numbers we have been seeing in recent days are confirming that this interest rate hike is very, very likely.”

“Headline inflation has gone down in recent months, and will continue to decline in the next few months,” she said. However, “core inflation, which in the euro area excludes energy and food, is too high.”

“The way forward is clear: we have to continue to take the measures needed to bring inflation back to 2%. And we will do so,” she added.

“My main concern is inflation. We don’t want to break the economy; that’s not our goal.” Lagarde said. “Our goal is to tame inflation.”

“As a central bank, interest rate hikes are our main tool to achieve that. Raising interest rates dampens demand and reduces inflationary pressures,” she added.

Full interview here.

ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos said that headline inflation could fall from 8.5% to 6% by mid-2023. However, core inflation could be more stable.

“In March we’ll have some projections, we’ll have more data on the evolution of underlying inflation,” Guindos said at CUNEF University. “Underlying inflation is very, very important.”

De Guindos also emphasized that inflation will have to clearly converge towards 2% target before the central bank could pause the tightening cycle.

ECB Governing Council member Madis Muller said, “it’s most likely this won’t be the last rate rise in this cycle,” referring the the intended 50bps hike this month.

“It’s quite possible that interest rates will need to stay high for quite some time so that we can be sure that inflation will come back to, and remain at, close to 2%,” he added.

“Headline inflation started to come down toward the end of last year, mainly thanks to a decline in energy prices, and it fell to 8.5% in January. More worrying however is that core inflation has remained persistently high at more than 5%, as the underlying price pressures aren’t yet receding,” Muller said.

“If we hesitate, we may later have to raise interest rates much higher, and keep them high for much longer, in order to get inflation down to the target of 2% and to keep it there” he noted.

ECB Governing Council member Bostjan Vasle said, “my personal expectations is that the increase we intend for our March meeting — that is 0.5 percentage points — will not be the last one.”

March rate hike “will be followed by additional increases before we reach a level that will be sufficient to bring inflation back to the trajectory towards our goal of 2% inflation,” he added.