ECB hawk says bank will carefully weigh inflation data after July

AMSTERDAM (Reuters) – The European Central Bank (ECB) will look closely for signs of inflation cooling down in the coming months to avoid taking rate hikes too far, governing council member Klaas Knot said in an interview on Tuesday.

Referring to the possibility of further rate hikes, Knot said: “For July it is a necessity, for anything beyond July it would at most be a possibility, but by no means a certainty.”

“We have to carefully watch what the data tells us. So far, we’ve been mainly preoccupied with the risk of inflation persistence. But the balance of risks is gradually shifting, and the risk of perhaps doing too much needs to be paid more attention to,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg TV.

(Reporting by Bart Meijer; Editing by David Holmes)