European Central Bank expected to cut interest rates later today
It would be the bank's eighth interest rate cut in the last 12 months, with officials having shifted focus from taming consumer price rises to easing pressure on the sluggish eurozone economy.
Expectations that the Frankfurt-based institution will deliver a fresh rate cut were strengthened this week when data showed eurozone inflation eased to 1.9% in May, faster than expected and below its 2% target.
'Any doubts about an ECB interest rate cut this week have now been eliminated,' said Dirk Schumacher, chief economist at German public lender KfW.
Advertisement
Analysts expect another quarter-point reduction that would take the central bank's key deposit rate to 2%.
The reduction would be welcome news for tracker mortgage holders, who would benefit immediately from the move, along with other borrowers.
Despite falling ECB rates, Ireland is the fifth most expensive country in the eurozone for mortgages, with Irish homebuyers paying 0.46 percentage points more than the average interest rate on new mortgages across the euro zone, according to a recent Central Bank report.
Observers will be on the lookout for any hints from ECB President Christine Lagarde at her press conference that policymakers could hit pause at their next meeting in July, as some expect.
The ECB's series of cuts stands in contrast to the US Federal Reserve, which has kept rates on hold recently amid fears that Trump's levies could stoke inflation in the world's top economy.
With reporting from
© AFP 2025
Readers like you are keeping these stories free for everyone...
A mix of advertising and supporting contributions helps keep paywalls away from valuable information like this article.
Over 5,000 readers like you have already stepped up and support us with a monthly payment or a once-off donation.
Learn More
Support The Journal
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Irish Independent
8 minutes ago
- Irish Independent
The Irish Independent's View: Prudence, rather than largesse, makes most economic sense for Ireland right now
As August begins, we have already seen so many budgetary kites take flight to tell us the making of the next year's budget starts earlier each year. Right now, Ireland is a rich nation and its people have expectations that accord with that. But in a Trumpian discordant world, that situation could change rapidly, as we found to our cost in 2008 when we entered what former finance minister Michael Noonan later called 'a lost decade'. Ireland's small, open economic model leaves us susceptible to swift boom-and-bust switches. In early October, we will learn the 2026 financial plans of 'Mr Prudence' himself, Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe. Many of us believe we deserve more goodies, but this is more a time for caution. If tough global economic times hit soon, we will be in a better position than we were in 2008, but the atypical budget surplus, which contrasts with our European neighbours, can only cushion so much. Ireland cannot be an economic outlier forever. We are reminded that the days of the early 2000s, when taoiseach Bertie Ahern declaimed that the 'boom just got boomier', presaged tough economic times. The impact of Donald Trump's tariffs may diminish the resources available for such largesse Mr Donohoe and his colleagues insist that one-off budget payments, like electricity bill grants, are not going to happen next year, but closer analysis suggests the Government's dilemma is that voters will notice the difference if they do not happen again. This is particularly true for households with children, who benefited from two double welfare payments. For a single worker on €50,000 last year, the budget measures delivered about €860 extra per year. When you add the two energy credits amounting to €250, you find it was a nice bonus that will be missed. The impact of Donald Trump's tariffs may diminish the resources available for such largesse, which should at all events be targeted, rather than blanket, measures. It may also provide some political cover for a more prudent approach to public spending. Last month's Summer Economic Statement indicated that there would be scope for a tax package of about €1.5bn, but a substantial part of that would be taken up by the pledged hospitality Vat rate cut to 9pc. Put this alongside keeping the lower Vat rate on household energy bills and you are suddenly over €1bn for a full year. Yet voters want income tax cuts, which are key to politicians' re-election, assuming there is available cash. Then there is the demand for welfare increases averaging €12 a week last year. All things considered, the Budget 2026 will prove more challenging than in the years of austerity when cutbacks virtually wrote themselves.
Irish Independent
8 minutes ago
- Irish Independent
Prospect of ECB rate cut in September slips as inflation steadies
Consumer prices rose an annual 2pc in July, the same pace as in the previous month, Eurostat data showed on Friday. The European Central Bank (ECB) policy setters calibrate interest rate levels with the aim of maintaining inflation at close to 2pc over time. Rising food prices in Ireland and elsewhere are complicating perceptions of inflation at household level, but the data confirms a fading of price spikes that kicked off as economies reopened at the end of the Covid pandemic. Friday's data showed a measure of core inflation, that strips out volatile energy and food prices, increased 2.3pc on the year. Services inflation was the weakest since early 2022. ECB president Christine Lagarde left interest rates unchanged last week and investors have begun to pare back bets of a further cut in September. Central Bank of Ireland governor Gabriel Makhlouf wrote a commentary on the interest rate dynamics this week in his online blog. He pointed to the most recent ECB staff forecasts in June that had headline inflation in the euro area averaging 2pc this year, falling to 1.6pc in 2026 and 2pc in 2027 respectively. While that is down to lower energy costs and a weaker dollar that is now already regaining strength, the Central Bank Governor said the numbers mean rate setters are in no rush to act. 'We have reached a point in our easing cycle where we can wait and see whether the data and evidence indicates the need for a change in our monetary policy stance,' he wrote. The euro hit a recent high of over $1.18 in July but has since fallen back to around $1.14 as the dollar headed for its strongest weekly performance in almost three years in the wake of US president Donald Trump's imposition of higher tariffs on EU imports and goods from dozens of other trade partners without triggering tit-for-tat retaliation. While that lifted the dollar, evidence for June shows US inflation picking up as tariffs lift prices for imported goods, supporting views that price pressures will pick up in the second half of the year and delay the Federal Reserve from resuming cutting interest rates until at least October.
Irish Examiner
5 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Daniel O'Connell personified the perpetual importance of an independent Bar
On July 27, 1813, in the Court of King's Bench in Dublin, Daniel O'Connell rose to defend John Magee, publisher of the Dublin Evening Post, against a charge of criminal libel. His speech that day demonstrated how a skilled barrister could transform an oppressive legal system into an instrument of political change. The case of The King v. John Magee remains one of the most memorable examples of O'Connell's extraordinary ability to use his legal expertise in the service of justice and reform. The charge against Magee arose from his publication of a review criticising the departing Lord Lieutenant, the Duke of Richmond. The article condemned Richmond's errors in governing Ireland and compared him to the worst of his predecessors, who were described as 'the profligate unprincipled Westmorland, the cold-hearted and cruel Camden, the artful and treacherous Cornwallis'. More significantly, it challenged the fundamental principle of British rule in Ireland — 'a principle of exclusion, which debars the majority of the people from the enjoyment of those privileges that are possessed by the minority'. This was no ordinary libel case. As O'Connell understood, it was unavoidably a political case, and it demanded a political speech. The prosecution was designed to suppress dissent and maintain the exclusion of Ireland's Catholic majority from political participation. Attorney General William Saurin made this clear in his opening, describing Magee as a 'ruffian' whose purpose was 'to excite [in the minds of the population] hatred against those whom the laws have appointed to rule over them, and prepare them for revolution'. O'Connell faced formidable obstacles. The law of criminal libel was so broad that, as he later observed, 'every letter I ever published could be declared a libel' and the libel law could 'produce a conviction with a proper judge and jury for The Lord's Prayer with due legal inuendoes'. More damaging still was the composition of the jury — hand-picked to ensure conviction. With characteristic boldness, O'Connell confronted this unfairness head-on, telling the jurors: 'Gentlemen, he [the Attorney General] thinks he knows his men; he knows you; many of you signed the no-popery petition... you would not have been summoned on this jury if you had entertained liberal sentiments'. Rather than being cowed by these disadvantages, O'Connell turned them into weapons. He began by meeting Saurin's personal attacks, describing the Attorney General's speech as a 'farrago of helpless absurdity'. When Saurin had stooped to calling Magee a ruffian and comparing him to 'the keeper of a house of ill fame', O'Connell lamented how far Saurin fell below the standards of the great Irish barristers such as Curran and Ponsonby: 'Devoid of taste and of genius, how can he have had memory enough to preserve this original vulgarity — he is, indeed, an object of compassion; and, from my inmost soul, I bestow on him my forgiveness and my bounteous pity'. O'Connell was even able to use Saurin's own words against him. When the Attorney General accused Magee of Jacobinism, O'Connell recalled Saurin's defence of himself against the same charge in 1800, when Saurin, then anti-union, had declared that 'agitation is ... the price necessarily paid for liberty'. O'Connell's response was devastating: 'We have paid the price, gentlemen, and the honest man refuses to give us the goods'. What made O'Connell's defence truly remarkable was how he transformed a hopeless legal case into a powerful platform for political reform. His bold claim: 'the Catholic cause is on its majestic march — its progress is rapid and obvious... We will, we must, be soon emancipated' is electrifying even now. What must it have sounded like in his voice, in that court, in that trial, in those times? His confidence in his legal position was equally striking. When Saurin threatened to crush the Catholic Board, O'Connell declared: 'I am, if not a lawyer, at least a barrister. On this subject, I ought to know something; and I do not hesitate to contradict the Attorney General ... the Catholic Board is perfectly a legal assembly — that it not only does not violate the law, but that it is entitled to the protection of the law' Perhaps the most significant moment came not during the trial itself, but at the sentencing hearing on November 27, 1813. When Saurin attempted to use Magee's publication of O'Connell's defence speech as grounds for increasing Magee's sentence, O'Connell delivered what may be his most important statement on the role of the legal profession. In the face of personal threats of contempt and possible imprisonment following his denunciation of the Attorney General, O'Connell stood firm, delivering an impassioned defence of the importance of an independent Bar: 'It is the first interest of the public that the Bar shall be left free... the public are deeply interested in our independence; their properties, their lives, their honours, are entrusted to us; and if we, in whom such a guardianship is confided, be degraded, how can we afford protection to others?'. This was not merely professional self-interest, but a profound understanding of the Bar's constitutional role. In a system designed to exclude the majority from political participation, an independent legal profession became the last protection of individual rights. O'Connell grasped the fact that, without fearless advocates willing to challenge authority, the law would become merely an instrument of oppression. That is why, as the Taoiseach, Micheál Martin, put it when addressing the O'Connell 250 Symposium in Trinity College Dublin on Tuesday last, The Bar of Ireland has always been rightly proud of the fact that O'Connell was such a distinguished member of the Bar. Two hundred years later, the existence of a fearless independent Bar, practising advocacy and giving legal advice to the highest professional standards, remains an essential guarantee of the rule of law and the protection of individual rights. The many, often insidious, efforts that exist, whether prompted by powerful commercial, bureaucratic or political interests, to degrade or diminish the Bar are always, above all else, an attack on the rights of citizens and on the rule of law. O'Connell's performance in The King v. John Magee exemplifies the best traditions of forensic advocacy at The Bar of Ireland. Faced with a corrupt system, a biased tribunal, and impossible odds, he refused to bow his head or moderate his principles. Instead, he turned the forms and processes of an unjust and oppressive system against itself, using a political prosecution against dissenting speech as the means to condemn the oppressor and amplify the dissent. In an age when legal systems worldwide face challenges to their integrity and especially to the independence of barristers and advocates, O'Connell's example reminds us that the law's highest purpose is not merely to maintain order, but to secure justice. His defence of John Magee shows the difference a single barrister, armed with skill, courage, and unwavering principle, can make. Seán Guerin SC. Picture: Conor McCabe Photography. Seán Guerin SC is Chair of the Council of The Bar of Ireland
