MNI BRIEF: ECB Should Weigh Undershooting Risk -Rehn
MNI (LONDON) - The European Central Bank should consider the risk of undershooting its 2% target in its April Governing Council meeting if U.S. tariffs dampen growth quickly even if its not “the central scenario for the moment”, Bank of Finland Governor Olli Rehn said on a livestreamed MNI Connect on Tuesday.
“We have to assess how these recent changes and forthcoming changes before April and our projection from there onwards will affect our primary objective”, he said, adding that further analysis of recent and projected developments would have in the euro area growth and inflation outlooks. (See MNI ECB WATCH: Cuts 25BP, Direction No Longer Clear)
Rehn said that data dependency should be understood as a forward and not backward looking element because the ECB target is defined over the medium term. “We have to consider all data and all indicators. And we do a comprehensive assessment on that basis and of course that requires also a significant degree of judgment”.