The European Central Bank (ECB) opened yesterday in Sintra, southern Portugal, its annual forum, where central bank directors will discuss the best way to deal with inflation, driven by the war in Ukraine.
The ECB forum is being held in a hotel in Sintra, west of Lisbon, after two years in virtual format due to the pandemic.
The president of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, participated in 2014 in the first forum organized by the institution, when she was director of the International Monetary Fund.
Joining her this year will be US Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.
Lagarde, Powell and Bailey will close the seminar tomorrow together with the director general of the Bank for International Settlements, Agustín Carstens.
This morning, Lagarde will deliver a speech expected by financial operators as the ECB expects to raise interest rates in July for the first time in 11 years.
This perspective generates the fear of a new debt crisis in the euro zone, with growing differences between the interest rates that the countries of northern and southern Europe must pay to finance their deficits.
Recently, the ECB had to reassure investors by announcing that it is preparing new “anti-fragmentation instruments” to smooth out the rate differences between the countries of the euro zone.
The economic activity suffers because of the rise in the price of gas and imported raw materials, stimulating an inflation that is not clear how long it will last.