By François Rimeu, Senior Strategist, La Française AM

Until now, it was widely expected that the European central bank (ECB) would raise its interest rates by 50 basis points (bps) at its next meeting; the question now is if the ongoing collapse of US regional banks could lead them to adopt a less restrictive approach. Updated staff projections are likely to show much lower headline inflation this year, but faster GDP growth and higher core inflation, with minimal adjustment to both over the medium-term horizon.

Please find below what we expect:

The ECB to increase its key interest rates by 50 bps, bringing the deposit rate to 3.0%, despite current turbulence coming from US regional banks. President Christine Lagarde to repeat that the Governing Council’s (GC) priority is to return inflation to the 2% target. The forward guidance will likely be as neutral as possible, keeping all options open, especially given the visible divisions within the Governing Council and the situation of US regional banks.

Mrs. Lagarde will emphasize that the board will adjust its policy trajectory according to incoming data on inflation, the evolving outlook and the transmission of its monetary policy. We do not expect the ECB to maintain its February assessment on the inflation outlook given the latest strong inflation data. - i.e., “the risks to the inflation outlook have also become more balanced”.

We do not expect any news on the pace of Quantitative Tightening. On new ECB staff economic projections:

We expect them to indicate higher growth in 2023 (from 0.5% to 0.7%) but lower GDP in 2024 (from 1.9% to 1.5%). For 2025, we expect growth will stay close to potential growth at around 1.8%.

We anticipate the ECB’s global inflation projections to be revised lower over the projection horizon given changes in technical assumptions (higher market rates, a stronger euro and lower energy prices) with 2,1% in 2025 (versus 2.3% in December projections).

We expect the ECB’s core inflation to be revised higher in 2023 (from 4.2% to 4.6%) and remain broadly unchanged over the next two years, at 2.8% in 2024 and 2.3% in 2025.