By Friederike Marx, dpa

The president of Germany‘s Bundesbank, Joachim Nagel, has said he is confident that Europe’s central banks will manage to get a grip on the eurozone’s high inflation levels.

“I am still confident that we can manage this in terms of monetary policy in such a way that in the end we can fulfil our mandate and come out with 2% inflation in the medium term,” Nagel said on Friday.

At the same time, Nagel, who as Bundesbank president is a member of the Governing Council of the European Central Bank (ECB), warned that “the window of opportunity that is now opening for monetary policy measures is closing slowly and we have to see that we do something about it.”

There were certain factors that monetary policy could not control, Nagel admitted, adding that the central bank could nevertheless influence inflation expectations. “But we must not wait too long.”

If inflation expectations become entrenched at a certain level, “then it eats into other prices,” Nagel warned.

Nagel said that he did not currently see any concern that an end to the ECB’s ultra-loose monetary policy could choke off the economy. Based on current data, he predicted there would be no recession.

“I don’t buy the argument that monetary policy has to exercise restraint now because the real economic situation would be very, very difficult. I don’t see that at the moment,” Nagel said.

The ECB has signalled that it could decide to end net bond purchases at its June council meeting. Stopping the purchases is a precondition for interest rate hikes, according to the ECB.”I’m not a big fan of trying to outbid each other now in forecasting when a first interest rate step could then come and how high it would be,” the Bundesbank president said. Other ECB representatives had signalled a first rate hike in July.

Economists expect that the central bank will probably first raise the negative deposit rate to 0% in several steps this year. Currently, banks have to pay 0.5% interest when they park money at the ECB.