ECB: Keeping all options open – Rabobank

A growing group of policymakers is calling for a pause soon, but this will not affect next week’s meeting, Rabobank’s Senior Macro Strategist Bas van Geffen reports.

ECB to cut the deposit rate by 25bp in at next week’s meeting

“The staff projections will probably include an upward revision to 2025 inflation, but they may be outdated already. Plus, US tariffs could shorten the shelf life of these forecasts.”

“The ECB could perhaps include a scenario with placeholder tariffs to underscore its reaction function. Factoring in placeholder tariffs, we estimate a longer time for inflation to converge to target than the ECB.”

“We expect the ECB to cut the deposit rate by 25bp in at next week’s meeting. Our base case remains one further cut in April, but we see increasing risks that the next move is delayed to June.”