FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank must be attentive to policy decisions by the U.S. Federal Reserve as it influences global markets but it cannot just mirror moves in Washington, ECB President Christine Lagarde said on Thursday.
“We have to be attentive to potential spillovers,” Lagarde told a conference in Riga. “We are not alike and we cannot progress either at the same pace (or) under the same diagnosis of our economies.”
“But we are also influenced by the consequences particularly through the financial markets, and to a lesser extent, through trade as well, because clearly the exchange rate matters and has to be taken into account in our inflation projections,” Lagarde said.
(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Francesco Canepa)