FRANKFURT, April 20 (Reuters) - Some European Central
Bank policymakers worried at their last meeting that the ECB's
new economic forecasts about wages, growth and inflation were
too benign, even before they were published, the ECB said on
Thursday.
The ECB said at that meeting that it expected inflation
would gradually decline to its 2% target by 2025, wage rises
would moderate while economic growth would pick up.
But some of its 26 policymakers expressed doubts about what
they called an “immaculate disinflation”, the ECB's account of
the March 15-16 meeting showed.
"Some members argued that there was only a small
probability that inflation would fall back to low levels as
quickly as suggested in the March ECB staff projections, which
gave the impression of an 'immaculate disinflation' (i.e. a
return of inflation to target with very low cost in terms of
lost output)," the ECB said in the account.
It added "a number of members" of the Governing Council saw
risks to the inflation outlook "as tilted to the upside over the
entire horizon".
The ECB raised interest rates by 50 basis points at that
meeting but it said the outlook was too uncertain to commit to
more as a crisis was engulfing one of the world's largest banks,
Credit Suisse.
(Reporting By Francesco Canepa; editing by Balazs Koranyi)
Messaging: francesco.canepa.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))
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