The European Central Bank today announced a 10th consecutive increase in interest rates, leaving them at their highest level since the creation of the Euro.
Responding to the decision, European Trade Union Confederation General Secretary Esther Lynch said:
"This is an astonishing decision. This is the wrong time for the ECB to increase interest rates. This decision will hurt workers, enrich shareholders and paves the way for a recession next year."
“The ECB’s own data shows that the increase in prices is being driven primarily by corporate profiteering and record interest rates will do nothing to stop that.
“Instead, today’s decision will make life harder for struggling workers who increasingly need to borrow to afford life’s basics and take us closer to another job-destroying recession by choking off investment desperately needed to increase productivity and green the economy.
“The only winners are the wealthy shareholders of major banks which have paid out huge dividends thanks to previous interest rate hikes.
“It’s time policymakers stopped lining the pockets of bankers at the expense of ordinary people and dealt with the real cause of this crisis by backing windfall taxes on the excess profits driving inflation.”
Notes
Banks accounted for half the global dividend growth in Q2 2023 as rising interest rates boosted margins, according to the latest edition of the Janus Henderson Dividend Index.
