Lagarde: "A Few Members" Felt Confident Enough To Cut Now

The press conference Q&A begins:

• Q: Do you believe that levels of confidence can be reached by June? Were there some GC members that thought that time may have come today? Would hot inflation data out of the US and the market response impact the way you see the ECB monetary policy path going forward?
• (Lagarde re-reads new section in the policy statement concerning ‘confidence’). It’s an important sentence because it describes the mechanics and clarifies our reaction function. I have said previously that we get some information in April, but in June we will get a lot more data and information, as well as a new projection that will be informed by this information. We are data dependent.
• Truth be told, a few members felt sufficiently confident on the basis of the limited data available in April and they believed to rally to the consensus - a large majority of the GC that wanted more information in June.