ECB monitors euro strength as rising currency risks pushing inflation lower

European policymakers are keeping a close eye on the euro’s recent climb and how it might dampen price increases across the region, a development that could shape decisions on borrowing costs in the months ahead.

Francois Villeroy de Galhau, who sits on the European Central Bank’s Governing Council, said the bank is tracking the currency’s gains and will factor this into rate choices going forward. The French central banker made clear that while the ECB doesn’t aim for any particular exchange rate, officials are worried that additional strength in the euro could push prices down further.

Currency gains raise inflation worries

“We are closely monitoring this appreciation of the euro and its possible consequences in terms of lower inflation,” Villeroy wrote on LinkedIn. “This is one of the factors that will guide our monetary policy and our decisions on interest rates over the coming months.”

The comments come as prices in the euro area hover slightly under the ECB’s 2% goal, with forecasts showing inflation staying beneath that mark both this year and next. That’s left some officials especially worried about anything that might push prices even lower.

Several other Governing Council members have raised similar flags as the euro has gained ground against the dollar. Martin Kocher, who leads Austria’s central bank, told Bloomberg Television on Tuesday that the ECB needs to watch whether the currency keeps climbing. Those remarks came just hours before President Donald Trump said he wasn’t worried about the dollar’s drop, which sent the euro briefly past $1.20 on Tuesday for the first time since June 2021. By Wednesday, it was sitting just under that threshold but had still jumped 2% against the dollar so far this year.

Luis de Guindos, the ECB’s vice president, said back in July that $1.20 was “perfectly acceptable” but warned that anything higher “would be much more complicated.” Yet Gediminas Simkus, who heads Lithuania’s central bank, told Econostream in an interview out Wednesday that calling $1.19 a trigger for policy changes would be an “oversimplification.”

Market watchers expect these currency movements to weigh heavily on the bank’s next steps. Bloomberg Economics noted that the ECB is set to hold rates steady at its Feb. 4-5 meeting, but the euro’s latest jump will likely be front and center in Frankfurt. Policymakers probably won’t sound tough in ways that could push the currency higher and may instead highlight the economic drag from a stronger euro.

Carsten Brzeski, who leads macro research at ING in Frankfurt, said more gains in the common currency might lead some to call for looser policy. “If the strengthening continues, calls for a rate cut will get louder,” he said.

Villeroy pointed to uncertainty around American economic choices as a key driver of these swings. Writing on LinkedIn, he said the dollar’s slide reflects doubts about policy choices coming out of Washington. “The dollar is falling significantly against most currencies, including the euro,” Villeroy said. “This is a sign of reduced confidence in light of the unpredictability of US economic policy.”

Digital euro push gains momentum amid geopolitical tensions

To shield Europe’s economy from such outside uncertainty, the ECB is moving faster on plans for financial independence. Piero Cipollone, an ECB executive board member, told Spanish newspaper El País in an interview shared by the ECB on Wednesday that rising global tensions make the case stronger for a European-run digital payments network. He described the planned digital euro as “public money in digital form” and said it’s needed alongside cash to address Europe’s increasingly scattered payments setup.

Cipollone noted that cash made up about 24% of daily transaction value in 2024, a sharp fall from 40% in 2019, and said the ECB must adjust how it provides money as a public service. He connected that job directly to global politics, warning that the “weaponisation of every conceivable tool” and growing tensions mean Europe needs a retail payment system “fully under our control” built on European technology rather than outside providers.

The ECB official stressed that merchants currently accepting digital payments “will have to accept” the digital euro, pointing to its legal tender status. Cipollone pushed back against waiting for a private alternative, noting the ECB has “been calling on the private sector to come up with a pan-European solution for many years now.”

His remarks followed a Jan. 11 open letter from about 70 economists and policymakers asking EU lawmakers to “let the public interest prevail” on the digital euro and warning that more delays could deepen Europe’s reliance on major private and non-European payment providers.

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