(Bloomberg) -- The European Central Bank may be able to loosen its monetary-policy stance if the slowdown in consumer-price growth persists, according to Executive Board member Piero Cipollone.

Should incoming data confirm that inflation is returning to the 2% target, “it would be appropriate to remove some of the restrictive measures that we put in place in 2023,” said the Italian official, who’s attending the International Monetary Fund and World Bank spring meetings in Washington.

“We expect for the rest of this year inflation more or less at this level” due to base effects like the withdrawal of energy-support measures,” he told the IIF Global Outlook Forum on Wednesday. “We expect next year inflation to resume the decline.”

The ECB is steering expectations toward an interest-rate cut at its next meeting, in June — a prospect that officials including President Christine Lagarde have backed in recent days. She said Tuesday that — barring major shocks — the ECB will moderate its restrictive monetary-policy stance in a “reasonably short order.” 

There’s much less unity on what will happen after that, however.

Bank of France chief Francois Villeroy de Galhau spoke this week of more cuts this year and next, with some of his Governing Council colleagues urging as many as four moves in 2024 — even as the Federal Reserve backs away from loosening in the face of sticky inflation. Others call for caution as geopolitical risks swirl.

Cipollone described potential increases in oil prices due to rising tensions in the Middle East as “one of the major concerns.”

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