The European Central Financial institution raised rates of interest to their highest degree in additional than twenty years on Thursday and warned that there was additional to go so as to stamp out inflation.

Not like the Federal Reserve, which left rates of interest unchanged on Wednesday, policymakers who set charges for the 20 nations that use the euro stated they hadn’t even mentioned pausing fee will increase at this week’s coverage assembly.

“Are we finished? Have we completed the journey? No, we’re not at vacation spot,” Christine Lagarde, the president of the financial institution, instructed reporters in Frankfurt.

The financial institution lifted charges by 1 / 4 of a proportion level, placing the deposit fee at 3.5 p.c, the very best since 2001, as officers stated inflation was forecast to stay too excessive for too lengthy. It was the financial institution’s eighth consecutive improve. The transfer had been properly telegraphed because the final assembly of the financial institution’s Governing Council in early Might, when policymakers expressed concern about underlying inflation pressures from wage development and company earnings or the affect of rising meals costs.

A day earlier, the Federal Reserve held rates of interest regular for the primary time in additional than a 12 months. After final month’s mirror-image transfer, when each raised charges 1 / 4 level, the 2 central banks have begun to diverge once more. The European Central Financial institution, which started to boost charges from beneath zero in July, hasn’t been elevating them for as lengthy or as excessive because the Fed.

“We aren’t desirous about pausing,” Ms. Lagarde stated on Thursday. It’s “very doubtless” that the financial institution will elevate charges once more in July, she added, so long as there isn’t a “materials change” to the financial institution’s expectations for inflation.

Policymakers say they need to keep away from the chance of declaring victory of their battle in opposition to rising costs prematurely, even because the eurozone’s annual fee of inflation has dropped from its double-digit peak late final 12 months to six.1 p.c in Might, the slowest tempo in additional than a 12 months. A lot of the slowdown may be attributed to decrease wholesale vitality prices, however central bankers have been alert to indicators that inflation is changing into embedded within the economic system, which might impede them from getting inflation again to their 2 p.c goal.

Ms. Lagarde highlighted the rising impact of wage will increase on inflation, saying that “wage pressures, whereas partly reflecting one-off funds, have gotten an more and more vital supply of inflation.” Greater wage prices for corporations additionally clarify why core inflation, which excludes vitality and meals prices, is predicted to be greater over the subsequent two years, she stated.

Wage development will likely be persistent, Ms. Lagarde stated, particularly within the brief time period because the summer time journey and tourism season begins. Whereas she is laying the groundwork for sturdy wage positive factors within the eurozone, unexpectedly quick wage development in Britain has led merchants to guess on greater rates of interest there.

The European Central Financial institution forecasts headline inflation to common 5.4 p.c this 12 months, however expects it to nonetheless be above the goal in two years, at 2.2 p.c, barely greater than projections set out three months in the past. That 2.2 p.c forecast is “not passable,” Ms. Lagarde stated.

As inflation slows, the query of how a lot coverage tightening is the correct quantity has grow to be tough to gauge. An excessive amount of might restrain the economic system greater than essential and trigger or worsen a recession. Too little might permit inflation to grow to be a persistent drawback that policymakers can’t root out. It’s a problem going through central bankers across the globe.

On Wednesday, the Fed stated it was giving itself time to evaluate how the U.S. economic system was reacting to the speedy tempo of previous fee will increase. However policymakers warned that they may want to boost charges once more later. Such a sample was established lately in Australia and Canada, the place central banks held charges regular for a brief interval earlier than resuming will increase.

On Thursday, Ms. Lagarde stated policymakers would know the place to maintain charges solely once they arrived there.

Nonetheless, merchants are betting that date will arrive on the financial institution’s September or, extra doubtless, October assembly.

“The E.C.B. simply talked itself into two extra fee hikes,” Claus Vistesen, the chief eurozone economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics, wrote in a notice after Thursday’s announcement. Each, in July and September, will likely be 1 / 4 level, leaving the deposit fee at 4 p.c, the place he predicted it could keep. However economists at Berenberg financial institution and Commerzbank anticipate the E.C.B. to cease after another improve, to three.75 p.c, and preserve charges there all through 2024.

In Might, the European Central Financial institution slowed its fee will increase because it acknowledged the affect that tighter financial coverage was having on the area’s economic system by means of extra restrictive lending circumstances. On Thursday, the financial institution stated tighter financing circumstances had been anticipated to additional dampen demand.

Because the central financial institution signaled greater rates of interest, it additionally barely lowered its forecasts for financial development, predicting that the economic system will develop 0.9 p.c this 12 months and 1.5 p.c subsequent 12 months. The eurozone slipped into recession earlier this 12 months as excessive costs brought on folks to spend much less.

The central financial institution’s subsequent selections “will make sure that the important thing E.C.B. rates of interest will likely be dropped at ranges sufficiently restrictive to attain a well timed return of inflation to the two p.c medium-term goal,” it stated in a press release, “and will likely be stored at these ranges for so long as essential.”