ECB rate-hike spat ramps up as Visco slams hawkish colleagues

BLOOMBERG 

Ignazio Visco openly criticised hawkish European Central Bank (ECB) colleagues for making statements about future increases in borrowing costs when officials had agreed not to give such guidance.
The outburst by the Bank of Italy governor, in added remarks at the end of a speech in Rome, is a pointed public attack that hints at rising tensions behind closed doors in advance of next week’s decision.
“Uncertainty is so high that the Governing Council of the ECB has agreed to decide ‘meeting by meeting’, without ‘forward guidance,’” he said.
“I therefore don’t appreciate statements by my colleagues about future and prolonged interest rate hikes.”
Visco, one of the ECB’s more dovish officials, is among the final speakers before a pre-decision blackout period begins.
A meeting that was intended to seal a half-point rate increase has become an intensified debate over how many further steps to deliver.
Earlier in Bank of Italy governor Visco’s speech, he said that monetary policy needs to remain data driven in order to manage continuing global and geopolitical uncertainty.