The President of the European Central Bank, Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde - French lawyer and politician.

Born on January 1 in Paris.

Next in the US and France.

Since 1981, it has said it will continue to focus on controlling inflation in the eurozone, hinting that the ECB will continue to raise interest rates.

"There are factors that could pose significant upside risks to the inflation outlook," she said in an interview with Nikkei Asia online published on Wednesday, noting that the ECB "needs to be extremely alert to these potential risks... more especially in relation to wage increases in various European countries".

"We have a mandate that gives us one goal, not two, as is the case with the US Federal Reserve. Our goal is price stability," Lagarde said, reiterating that she would focus on controlling inflation.

Critics of the ECB accuse it of starting to tighten rates later than the US and UK central banks, which some say explains why inflation in Europe remains high.

Lagarde rejected this argument, saying:

"We have moved in a very conscious and determined way to fight inflation."

However, she admitted that "there is still more to do", suggesting that the bank will further tighten its monetary and interest rate policies.

As food and other commodity prices continue to rise, financial markets expect the ECB to raise interest rates again at its meetings in June and July.

The ECB's next meeting is scheduled for June 15, with markets predicting another 25 basis point increase in key interest rates.

However, Lagarde did not give any indication of raising interest rates in September either, which has become a topic of discussion recently.

She also declined to say whether the bank would shrink its balance sheet faster to reinforce the effect of monetary tightening.

In the same interview with Nikkei Asia, Christine Lagarde

Christine Lagarde - French lawyer and politician.

Born on January 1 in Paris.

Next in the US and France.

Since 1981, he has repeated that

, BNR reported.

"We have no recession in our baseline forecast for 2023 and are in a better position than what we feared six months ago," she assured.

This appears to be partly due to growing confidence that the loss of Russian energy supplies will not have a major impact on the European economy.

Lagarde pointed out that "even without any Russian energy supplies, the European position is solid".

The ECB raised its key interest rates by 25 basis points

However, Lagarde showed some concern about the crisis surrounding Ukraine.

"We still have a lot of uncertainty, including what will happen in Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine and some emerging signs of weakness in demand for industrial goods."

The ECB president concluded the interview by saying that although Russia threatens Europe on the security front, the biggest economic concern for the eurozone is persistently high inflation.

Eurozone annual inflation rose to 7% in April, showing signs of resilience.

Christine Lagarde