Speech by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the Hearing of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs of the European Parliament

Brussels, 25 September 2023

I am very pleased to be back in Brussels for our regular exchange.

Since our last hearing in June, the ECB has made further progress in its efforts to bring inflation back to its 2% medium-term target. In order to reinforce progress towards our target, we decided at our latest meeting to raise the three key ECB interest rates by 25 basis points. And, based on our current assessment, we consider that our rates have reached levels that, maintained for a sufficiently long duration, will make a substantial contribution to the timely return of inflation to our target.

In my short remarks today, I will outline our latest assessment of the outlook for the economy and inflation and explain our latest decisions. I will also briefly address the two topics selected by this Committee for today’s hearing: excess liquidity and…