Geoffrey Smith 

Investing.com — The euro rose in early trading in Europe on Thursday as Vice President Luis De Guindos joined a growing chorus of European Central Bank officials acknowledging the possibility of an interest rate hike as early as July.

De Guindos’ remarks are identical to Joachim Nagel (Deutsche Bundesbank), and Pierre Wunsch (Belgian) and Martins Kazaks (Latvian). They are all attending the International Monetary Fund.

These comments represent a coordinated shift in the messaging of the bank, after Christine Lagarde, President of the Bank, had downplayed the possibility for an early rate increase at last week’s press conference. It’s not unusual for the German central banking to be more hawkish than its official position, but Lagarde’s deputy has given the comments greater weight.

The price was at $1.0894 by 2:50 ET (0650 GMT) and it had risen 0.4% in the past week. After Thursday’s Lagarde press conference, the price had fallen to $1.0757 for 20 months.

According to Newswires, De Guindos stated that the bank could not stop its net asset purchases for July. This would open the door for a rate increase almost immediately thereafter. De Guindos stressed, however, that raising rates will be dependent on data because of the increased risks for the economy from Russia’s invasion. An earlier week, IMF downgraded their Eurozone growth forecast to 2.8% from a previous estimate of 3.9%. De Guindos indicated that the current rate of.5% is an unprecedented high, but that it will be decreasing by year-end.

The Governor of the Belgian National Bank, Wunsch, told Bloomberg that this year’s rate rises would likely be in a Bloomberg interview.

“Without any really bad news coming from that front, hiking by the end of this year to zero or slightly positive territory for me would be a no brainer,” Wunsch said.

On Wednesday, meanwhile, Bundesbank head Nagel had said “It seems we’ll be able to end net purchases, possibly already at the end of the second quarter,” paving the way for a first rate increase “at the beginning of the third quarter.”