The European Central Bank may need to raise interest rates again in December, its chief economist Philip Lane said on Tuesday, adding his voice to a growing chorus of policymakers making the case for a third rate rise this year.
“If the information set we have in December is exactly the same as the information set today, then I think it would be prudent indeed to hike,” Lane told Bloomberg Television. “There will be more to come in terms of peak inflation.”
Lane said inflation in the eurozone was likely to end the year “a little bit” over 4%, about double the bank’s 2% target, and warned that core and food inflation were set to quicken. Headline inflation stood at 4% in October, with core inflation steady at 2.5%, while energy inflation climbed to 20.8%.
The ECB held its deposit rate at 2.50% on 29 October, after raising it by 25 basis points in June and again in September. A further quarter-point move in December would take the deposit rate to 2.75%.
Lane’s remarks follow a similar signal from President Christine Lagarde, who said on Monday that inflation would stay high and that it would take significant changes in the data to stop a December hike. Bundesbank chief Joachim Nagel made the same case last week, saying a December rise looked “very likely necessary”.
Lane also pushed back against calls for the ECB to ease France’s budget strains, saying the bank should not adjust the run-off of its bond holdings or deploy its crisis tool to help Paris. “Where this needs to be fixed is in Paris,” he said, adding that Europe’s economic resilience was “quite reassuring”.
The euro was little changed after the remarks, trading about 0.2% higher against the dollar at around $1.1250, as markets weighed a conditional hawkish signal against Lane’s insistence that any decision will depend on the data at the December meeting, when the bank publishes fresh staff economic projections.
Sources: Reuters, “ECB may need to hike in Dec, chief economist says”, 10 November 2026 (https://duke.fm/2026/11/10/ecb-may-need-to-hike-in-dec-chief-economist-says/); FXStreet, “ECB’s Lane: Prudent to hike again as inflation seen over 4% by year-end”, 10 November 2026 (https://www.fxstreet.com/news/ecbs-lane-prudent-to-hike-again-as-inflation-seen-over-4-by-year-end-202611100844)
