LONDON, Nov 5 (Reuters) - European Central Bank council members have recently emphasised inflation as their primary concern but also pointed out that weak growth prospects are taken into account when deciding the level of interest rates.
The ECB left its main repurchase rate at 3.75 percent at the last meeting on October 25, but economists expect it to cut rates at its next meeting on Thursday, November 8. A news conference is scheduled.
Following is a selection of comments by ECB council members since they last met.
ECB BOARD MEMBER EUGENIO DOMINGO SOLANS - NOV 5
Domingo said the ECB expected the outlook for inflation would improve as the euro zone economy slowed, and interest rates would respond accordingly.
"We are correctly adapting monetary policy to the cyclical situation," he told Spanish state television.
"I think the bank is acting prudently taking into account, basically, as a priority, inflation but of course, without ignoring that there is an economic slowdown here that translates into better inflation expectations and that also has to have -- of course is having -- its response in interest rates."
BUNDESBANK PRESIDENT ERNST WELTEKE - NOV 3
Welteke told German television station n-tv that interest rates in Germany "are very low on a historical basis considered in real terms."
Welteke said the ECB had already significantly cut rates and one had to now wait for their effect on prices.
"We're keeping with the data. We decide independently of...what politics should hold as right or wrong."
"If no danger for price stability threatens" then the ECB's monetary policy can follow "other goals", Welteke said, adding that he was "cautiously optimistic" about economic developments in 2002 and that economic fundamentals in both the United States and Germany were "extensively in order".
WELTEKE - NOV 2
Welteke told German daily Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung that both long-term and real interest rates were already low and ECB rate cuts of 100 basis points so far this year had yet to work their way through the economy.
"We must avoid long-term inflationary expectations building up because of liquidity supply possibly becoming too great through further rate cuts," he said in an interview with the newspaper's Saturday edition that was released on Friday.
"We have to take care that we don't prepare the next speculative bubble."
The ECB left its main repurchase rate at 3.75 percent at the last meeting on October 25, but economists expect it to cut rates at its next meeting on Thursday, November 8. A news conference is scheduled.
Following is a selection of comments by ECB council members since they last met.
ECB BOARD MEMBER EUGENIO DOMINGO SOLANS - NOV 5
Domingo said the ECB expected the outlook for inflation would improve as the euro zone economy slowed, and interest rates would respond accordingly.
"We are correctly adapting monetary policy to the cyclical situation," he told Spanish state television.
"I think the bank is acting prudently taking into account, basically, as a priority, inflation but of course, without ignoring that there is an economic slowdown here that translates into better inflation expectations and that also has to have -- of course is having -- its response in interest rates."
BUNDESBANK PRESIDENT ERNST WELTEKE - NOV 3
Welteke told German television station n-tv that interest rates in Germany "are very low on a historical basis considered in real terms."
Welteke said the ECB had already significantly cut rates and one had to now wait for their effect on prices.
"We're keeping with the data. We decide independently of...what politics should hold as right or wrong."
"If no danger for price stability threatens" then the ECB's monetary policy can follow "other goals", Welteke said, adding that he was "cautiously optimistic" about economic developments in 2002 and that economic fundamentals in both the United States and Germany were "extensively in order".
WELTEKE - NOV 2
Welteke told German daily Frankfurther Allgemeine Zeitung that both long-term and real interest rates were already low and ECB rate cuts of 100 basis points so far this year had yet to work their way through the economy.
"We must avoid long-term inflationary expectations building up because of liquidity supply possibly becoming too great through further rate cuts," he said in an interview with the newspaper's Saturday edition that was released on Friday.
"We have to take care that we don't prepare the next speculative bubble."
