Economist Volker Wieland is calling on the European Central Bank (ECB) to raise interest rates this year.
"The exclusion of a possible interest rate increase in 2022 is difficult to justify and unnecessary," said Wieland of Wirtschaftswoche according to a preliminary report.
Above all, he is amazed that ECB boss Christine Lagarde justifies her expansive course by saying that in 2023 and 2024 inflation will again be below the average inflation target of 2 percent.
"In view of the misjudgments about the development of inflation, it is very daring to link the current monetary policy to forecasts that reach so far into the future," explained Wieland.
Inflation in the euro zone surprisingly rose again to a record high in December.
In a FAZ interview last week, Wieland said that the ECB may have underestimated the strong recovery in the global economy and demand in the euro area and pointed out that the central bank was way off the mark with its inflation forecasts for 2021.
In September, she assumed a rate of 1.7 percent.
Wieland sees the main reason for this being that the supply capacities could not have kept up with the demand for durable goods in the course of the rapid economic recovery.
Very high state transfers and support payments would have also driven consumer price inflation, especially in the USA.