By Marta Vilar – MADRID (Econostream) – European Central Bank Governing Council member Gediminas Šimkus said on Wednesday that the ECB should refrain from raising interest rates at the April 30 Governing Council meeting.
Speaking on a podcast of Lithuanian newspaper Verslo žinios, Šimkus, who heads the Bank of Lithuania, said that he was “of the opinion that we really shouldn’t increase interest rates at the next monetary policy meeting.”
He declined to offer a prediction for June, noting that rapidly changing data and conditions made it unwise to commit to an outcome in advance, as doing so could leave policymakers “hostage” to their earlier statements.
“The environment now is such that it is actually best to make a decision based on the information you have at the time of making the decision … Because the environment is so changing that by making a certain forecast, indicating guidelines for where monetary policy may change, you can actually tilt expectations in the completely wrong direction,” he said.
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