Pierre Wunsch will succeed Jan Smets as Belgian central bank governor in 2019
- Decision will be driven by economic data
- ECB has stopped QE and the message is relatively clear
- If growth still slows, will keep low interest rates for a longer period
- It will be dependent on what we see in the economy
- Too early to talk about TLTROs
By succeeding Smets as Belgian central bank governor, Wunsch will also join the ECB's governing council starting next year. I believe this is very much the case as set out by Draghi's tone last week. As mentioned then, the ECB has put an end to QE but they still needed to sound confident as they went ahead with that decision.
But moving forward, they may change their language on risks and forward guidance if weak data still persists and that's very much reflected in their growth and inflation outlook forecasts - which were revised downwards for next year.
