ECB Governing Council member Pablo Hernandez de Cos said he expects the end of net asset purchases at the beginning of July, followed by a first rate hike. Then there will be “another one in September, (to get us) out of the negative territory. What next would be decided “according to the circumstances.”
“What we can do is to eliminate progressively in a very gradual manner, all the accommodation of our monetary policy (…) we will be deciding some steps in the following weeks, and this will be enough,” de Cos said.
Another governing council member Ignazio Visco emphasized, “given the uncertainty of the economic outlook, the rates will have to be raised gradually.”
