FRANKFURT () – The European Central Bank can ease policy further this year but must find a middle ground where it does not induce a recession and also does not cause an undue delay in curbing inflation, ECB chief economist Philip Lane told an Austrian newspaper.

“If interest rates fall too quickly, it will be difficult to bring services inflation under control,” Der Standard quoted Lane as saying on Monday.

“But we also don’t want rates to remain too high for too long, because that would weaken the inflation momentum in such a way that the disinflation process would not stop at 2% but inflation could materially fall below target,” Lane added.