The ECB is not signalling the start of a long series of rises in interest rates, President Jean-Claude Trichet said today.
Mr Trichet announced on Friday that the bank would start tightening monetary policy, remarks widely interpreted as signalling a 25 basis point increase in its current 2 per cent interest rate next week.
Asked at a meeting of a European parliament committee in Brussels whether only one interest rate increase was planned, Mr Trichet responded. "We will do what will be necessary to do. But I don't tell you (that) . . . we are starting a long series of increases."
Mr Trichet told the committee there was "no process of catching up in our own concept of handling monetary policy.
"We will do . . . what is needed to ensure price stability. But it would not be a good working assumption ex ante to consider that we are at the start of a series of interest rate increases," he reiterated.