ECB Chatterbox: July Edition

Research evidence excerpt

ECB Chatterbox: July Edition

Economics Research

16 July 2026 | 9:54AM CEST

The ECB Chatterbox highlights notable comments on key topics from ECB officials since the Alexandre Stott

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last Governing Council meeting. A few themes stand out: alexandre.stott@gs.com

Goldman Sachs Bank Europe SE - Paris

Branch

Inflation risks still to the upside. ECB officials have stressed that risks for inflation

remained to the upside since the resumption of military conflict in the Middle East.

And while some policymakers—such as National Bank of Belgium Governor

Wunsch—had welcomed the earlier decline in energy prices, most rate setters—

including Executive Board member Schnabel—had pointed to ongoing pipeline

inflation pressures. At the same time, all speakers on the record—most recently,

Austrian National Bank Governor Kocher—maintained that they were not seeing

signs of second-round effects in wage growth or inflation expectations.

July hike not in play, but further tightening to come. No one on the Governing

Council explicitly called for a July rate hike. Bundesbank President Nagel, in

particular, called for reacting with “caution” to the renewed increase in energy

prices. That said, most policymakers had already been eyeing further policy

tightening before the resumption of military conflict in the Middle East. Schnabel, for

instance, had called for interest rates to rise further at the end of June and recently

reiterated that the current shock “[could not] be simply looked through”. Other

officials—such as Central Bank of Slovenia Governor Dolenc, Bank of Estonia

Governor Kaasik, and Central Bank of Malta Governor Demarco—had also pointed to

further tightening to come.

Higher upper-end for the neutral range. Several policymakers referred to recent