The ECB's chief economist Philip Lane has become the latest ECB executive to indicate the bank will raise rates again at its Governing Council meeting next week.
In an interview with French newspaper, Le Monde, published on the ECB website, the bank's chief economist said "the current data are indicating that we should raise rates again. This is still not the right time to stop."
He went on to say that "it would be inappropriate to leave our deposit rate at the current level of 3%."
His comments come a day after Isabel Schnabel, another member of the Executive Board of the ECB, told Politico "it’s clear that further rate hikes are needed".
She cited the persistence of underlying inflation.
Central Bank of Ireland Governor Gabriel Makhlouf has also said it is too early for the European Central Bank to start planning for a pause in monetary policy tightening.
The European Central Bank is expected to raise rates for a seventh meeting in a row on May 4, with policymakers converging on a 25-basis-point hike - rather than a larger 50 bps increase - sources with direct knowledge of the discussion have told Reuters.
"We will be making our next policy decision in just over a week’s time and will be especially focused on incoming data," Makhlouf said in a blog post yesterday.
"But on the evidence so far, it is too early to start planning for a pause in our tightening of policy," he added.
Additional reporting by Reuters
