Europe’s Hawkish Rebellion Will Be Hard to Sustain

Central banks in Europe want to push back against the strengthening consensus that 2024 will be a year of interest-rate cuts. They may be swept up by it anyway.

Investors expected both the European Central Bank and the Bank of England to leave borrowing costs unchanged Thursday. In this regard, they didn’t disappoint. But their messaging struck a very different tone to that of Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell Wednesday. Whereas U.S. officials are openly pivoting and have suggested that rates will be cut many times next year—sparking euphoria in the stock market—their peers across the Atlantic are sticking with a narrative of “higher for longer.”