Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has once again advocated making a timely start on normalising policy rates in the euro area. The risk of acting too late is increasing notably, he said at a conference in Eltville am Rhein. “As inflation in the euro area continues to run high, we need to act,” Mr Nagel urged. “And if both the incoming data and our new projection confirm this view in June, I will advocate a first step [towards] normalising ECB (European Central Bank) interest rates in July.”

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has spoken out in favour of not waiting too much longer to proceed with the next steps towards a normalisation of monetary policy. “The era of negative interest rates should come to an end soon,” stated Mr Nagel, speaking at an event organised by the German daily newspaper “Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”.

Despite the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, euro area enterprises and households have not seen their debt situation deteriorate significantly. This is the conclusion reached by Bundesbank experts after examining developments in greater detail. “The expected normalisation of monetary policy will probably not unduly exacerbate the debt situation of non-financial corporations and households,” they also note in the current edition of the Bank’s Monthly Report

Economic activity in Germany may have more or less stagnated in the first quarter of 2022, the Bundesbank’s economists write in the current issue of the Monthly Report. They expect Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine to have had only a limited impact on Germany’s economy at first. Even so, the repercussions of the war are likely to significantly weaken the recovery, which had actually got off to a strong start. “Disruptions to foreign trade and supply chains, soaring energy prices and heightened uncertainty are weighing on enterprises and households,” the report states.

In the current issue of its Monthly Report, the Bundesbank uses scenario calculations to analyse the potential macroeconomic impact of a further escalation of the war against Ukraine. According to the experts, German real GDP this year could be down by as much as 2% compared with 2021. The inflation rate in Germany in 2022 could be 1½ percentage points higher than expected in the European Central Bank’s March projection.

The Bundesbank’s Executive Board has endorsed a second term of office for Bundesbank Vice-President Claudia Buch. The Executive Board notified the Federal Government that it had no objections to the Federal Cabinet’s nomination.

According to a flash estimate by the statistical office of the European Union, consumer prices in the euro area rose sharply on the year in March, with inflation as measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices climbing to 7.5%, up from around 5.9% in February. Against this backdrop, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel once again spoke out in favour of normalising monetary policy in good time.

General government debt in Germany increased by €162 billion in 2021 to €2.476 trillion. This was largely a result of government support measures in the second year of the pandemic. The debt ratio, meaning the ratio of debt to gross domestic product, rose from 68.7% to 69.3%.

Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel has warned of persistently high inflation. “Even before the war against Ukraine, the inflation rate was very high. [...] Given the surge in energy prices on account of the war, consumer price inflation is likely to pick up again substantially, particularly in the near term,” Mr Nagel said in a speech delivered at a change of office ceremony in Hanover. As members of the ECB Governing Council, he remarked, we must now ensure that the strong inflation does not become entrenched and does not lead to excessively high inflation in the medium term.

“The impact of Russia’s attack on Ukraine is likely to place a noticeable strain on economic activity in Germany from March,” the Bundesbank writes in its Monthly Report. Energy commodity prices have surged which will probably put a damper on household consumption and the production of energy-intensive industries. Together with the looming disruptions to foreign trade and supply chains and the heightened uncertainty, the consequences of the war are likely to slow the economic recovery originally expected by a significant degree.