(Bloomberg) -- Euro-area inflation data for April give the European Central Bank confidence to begin cutting interest rates in June before continuing to loosen monetary policy at a pragmatic pace, Governing Council member Francois Villeroy de Galhau said. 

The French central-bank chief commented in a post on LinkedIn a few hours after Eurostat revealed that the recent slowdown in inflation stalled in April, holding at 2.4%. Still, gains in services prices eased to 3.7% after five months at 4%.

“These data feed our confidence: We’ll return to our inflation target between now and next year,” Villeroy said. “We’ll therefore be able to start cutting rates in June.”

He said inflation readings in the coming months may be a little volatile so the ECB should focus more on the outlook for price increases than hard data. 

The subsequent pace of rate cuts will be “pragmatic depending on the inflation outlook, beyond the month-by-month results,” he said. 

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