ECB minutes keep every option open as Slovenia’s Dolenc leans toward more hikes

The European Central Bank’s account of its Sept. 9-10 meeting, published Thursday, shows every member backed the quarter-point hike, which took the deposit rate to 2.50 percent. Policymakers agreed communication should stay neutral, “neither suggesting that the current decision was another step in a predetermined tightening cycle nor that it was the last rate hike.”

Governing Council member Primoz Dolenc, Slovenia’s central bank governor, told Reuters the ECB may need to raise rates further, though timing and size are too uncertain to predict. He said elevated inflation and unresolved conflicts in the Middle East and Ukraine support “moving policy rates towards a more restrictive territory.”

The ECB’s next decision is Oct. 29.