Published by Global Banking & Finance Review®
Posted on December 23, 2024
1 min readLast updated: January 27, 2026
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ECB President Lagarde indicates euro zone is close to its 2% inflation target, with current inflation at 2.2%. Services inflation remains high.
(Reuters) - European Central Bank (ECB) President Christine Lagarde said the euro zone was getting "very close" to reaching the central bank's medium-term inflation goal, according to an interview published by the Financial Times on Monday.
Earlier in December, Lagarde had said the central bank would cut interest rates further if inflation continued to ease towards its 2% target, as curbing growth was no longer necessary.
"We're getting very close to that stage when we can declare that we have sustainably brought inflation to our medium-term 2%," Lagarde told the FT, urging continued vigilance on services inflation.
"You know, inflation, the latest reading we have is 2.2%," she added. "But services is still 3.9% and not budging much. It’s been hovering around 4%."
Lagarde said she opposed retaliation by Europe to tariff threats made by incoming U.S. President Donald Trump.
"I said that retaliation was a bad approach because I think that overall trade restrictions followed by retaliation and this tit-for-tat, conflictual way of dealing with trade is just bad for the global economy at large," she added.
(Reporting by Bipasha Dey in Bengaluru; Editing by Edmund Klamann and Clarence Fernandez)
The main topic is ECB President Christine Lagarde's statement on the euro zone nearing its 2% inflation goal.
The current inflation rate in the euro zone is 2.2%, according to Lagarde.
Lagarde opposes trade retaliation against the US, citing negative impacts on the global economy.
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