In view of the high inflation in the euro area, ECB Director Isabel Schnabel believes it is necessary to adjust monetary policy quickly.
"Now it's not enough to talk, we have to act," she told the "Handelsblatt" on Wednesday.
"From today's perspective, I think a rate hike in July is possible." Before that, the net purchases of bonds should be stopped, probably at the end of June.
The European Central Bank (ECB) last raised interest rates in the euro area in 2011, but corrected this step a short time later.
In other countries such as the USA and Great Britain, the central banks have already increased interest rates this year.
The reason is the global increase in inflation.
In the euro area, it reached a record high of 7.5 percent in April.
“We see inflationary pressures broadening”
The rise in prices is not just limited to energy and food, Schnabel told the newspaper.
"We see a broadening of inflationary pressures." There is no doubt that higher wage demands would come if inflation remained high for a longer period of time.
"We must prevent the high inflation from being fixed in the expectations," stressed Schnabel.
Wages and prices would not yet drive each other up.
But monetary policy must act with foresight.
"We must not only react when a wage-price spiral has already started."
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