The ECB has no policy meeting in April.
(Additional reporting by Stefano Bernabei and Alvise Armellini;
Editing by Alexander Smith)
(Adds Visco comment, background)
By Gavin Jones
ROME, March 8 (Reuters) - European Central Bank
governing council member Ignazio Visco on Wednesday criticized
some fellow policymakers for comments on future interest rates
that diverged from what had been agreed at ECB meetings.
Visco's intervention sets the scene for a heated discussion
at next week's meeting, at which the central bank is due to
raise interest rates for a sixth straight time and chart the
path ahead in its fight against high inflation.
Visco, like fellow Italian on the ECB executive board Fabio
Panetta, is seen as a policy dove, reluctant to commit to
aggressive rate hikes fearing they will hurt the economy.
"The uncertainty is so high that as a governing council we
agreed that we would decide meeting by meeting, without forward
guidance," the Bank of Italy governor said at a speech in Rome,
diverging from a previously distributed written text.
"For this reason I don't appreciate comments by my
colleagues regarding future and prolonged increases in rates,"
Visco added, in unusually blunt remarks that highlight a
widening rift at the Frankfurt-based ECB.
Visco said that while the ECB had managed to stabilise
inflation expectations, geopolitical uncertainties meant
economic developments were hard to predict.
"Monetary policy must therefore continue to move with
prudence and be driven by data as it becomes available."
The ECB is raising rates at the fastest pace on record, and
its chief economist Philip Lane said on Monday that it is still
likely to keep hiking them after a 50 basis point increase this
month that has already been virtually pre-announced.
Other governing council members, considered policy hawks who
attach overriding importance to curbing inflation even if it
means hurting growth and employment, have gone further.
Austrian central bank chief Robert Holzmann said on Monday
the ECB should hike by 50 basis points at each of its next four
meetings as inflation is proving to be stubborn.
That would take the deposit rate to 4.5%, well above the 4%
peak rate priced in by markets, a level no other policymaker has
so far advocated in public.
Germany's Bundesbank chief Joachim Nagel has called for
significant hikes beyond March and Klaas Knot of the Netherlands
has also said he sees a big rate hike in May if core inflation
does not fall.
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