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At a three-year high, euro faces ECB scrutiny

REUTERS, Brussels
After hitting a three-year high against the dollar, the strong euro is likely to preoccupy global markets and European Central Bank policymakers in particular in the coming week.
The ECB, whose Governing Council meets on Thursday, last expressed concern over the single currency in September, when it said exchange rate volatility was an uncertainty that required "monitoring". Then the euro had only briefly nudged beyond $ 1.20.
In the last week it has surpassed $1.23, and is now some 4 percent higher than when ECB policymakers met in December, although on a trade-weighted basis the euro's rise is not as steep.
Its January surge followed the release of minutes from the December ECB meeting showing the bank intended to revisit its policy message in early 2018, prompting markets to price in a 70 percent chance of a rise in interest rates by the end of the year. The ECB last hiked rates in 2011.
Reuters reported on Wednesday that the ECB was unlikely to ditch its pledge to keep buying
bonds at its January meeting.
Public comments in the past week show its policymakers are growing more alert to the euro's strength. Vice-President Vitor Constancio said that, while the ECB did not have an exchange rate target, he was concerned by sudden movements that did not reflect changes in fundamentals. Austrian central bank chief Ewald Nowotny called the euro's gains against the dollar "not helpful".
European firms used to express more concern about the euro crossing what they called the pain threshold, curbing exports and so overall growth. The euro zone economy is currently motoring along at a decade-high pace of 2.5 percent per year.
Carsten Brzeski, Frankfurt-based economist for ING, says the impact of a strong euro on growth has steadily faded as an increasing number of invoices are denominated in euros and companies are more active hedging their currency exposure.
"This time it matters more for inflation than for growth," he said.
Sustained euro strength, he said, would
reduce the ECB's inflation assumptions this year and next - 1.4 and 1.5 percent respectively - by 0.2 percentage points. This would move them further from the ECB target of close to but below 2 percent and reduce the prospects of an early and sudden end to quantitative easing.
Indeed, the most recent euro zone inflation figures vindicate the ECB's easy policy stance. The rate in December fell to 1.4 percent from 1.5 percent in November and underlying inflation, excluding volatile energy, food, alcohol and tobacco, was a mere 0.9 percent for the third month in a row.The euro might not have hit a pain threshold yet, but ECB policymakers will not want to encourage any further rise.
Jan von Gerich, economist at Nordea Markets, suggests ECB President Mario Draghi will sound a shade less optimistic than in December to convince markets that the next rate hike is not coming sooner and to stop the euro from rising further.