Klaas Knot, the Dutch Central Bank President and a member of the European Central Bank’s governing council, said on Sunday he expects the ECB to raise interest rates in the fourth quarter of this year.
In an interview on Dutch television programme Buitenhof, Knot, known as one of the more hawkish members of the ECB’s board, said he supported winding down the euro zone central bank’s asset purchasing program as quickly as possible.
“Personally I expect our first rate increase to take place around the fourth quarter of this year…. Normally we would raise rates by a quarter percentage point, I have no reason to expect we would take a different step.” He added that a second rate hike would follow the first one in short order, likely in the first quarter of 2023.
Knot’s remarks follow those by ECB President Christine Lagarde on Thursday in which she opened the door to an interest rate increase in 2022, a change from her previous stance that it was “unlikely”.
