Relatively benign fourth quarter wage growth data are encouraging but not yet enough to give the European Central Bank confidence that inflation has been defeated, ECB president Christine Lagarde said on Friday.
"The Q4 wage numbers are obviously encouraging numbers," Lagarde told a news conference. "The Governing Council needs to be more confident that the disinflationary process that we are observing will be sustainable and will take us to the 2% medium term target."
Negotiated wage data from the first quarter, due out in May, will be especially important for the ECB, Lagarde added.
