ECB ‘crystal clear’ on June rate cut, de Guindos says

The European Central Bank has made it "crystal clear" that interest rates could be cut in June but has also been firm that policy decisions beyond that remain up in the air, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos said on Thursday. The ECB put a June rate cut on the table last week and has spent the past week reinforcing that guidance, despite rising oil prices, a weaker euro and bets that its biggest peer, the U.S. Federal Reserve, would delay its own rate cuts. "I think that we have been crystal clear: if things continue as they have been evolving lately, in June we'll be ready to reduce the restriction of our monetary policy stance," de Guindos told a parliamentary hearing in Brussels.