ECB's Kazaks says the ECB is in a fairly comfortable situation on rates and 2.5% is the upper limit of the ECB's neutral limit

Kazaks sits on the hawkish side of the Governing Council's distribution, so remarks of this kind tend to describe the committee's more restrictive flank rather than its median. The substance here is neutral rate calibration: framing the upper end of the neutral range pins a floor under where the easing cycle can run, since policy judged restrictive at levels below that bound implies further cuts remain available, while policy nearing neutrality implies the cycle is close to done. That distinction matters for how the comment feeds the curve, the front end repricing terminal rate expectations rather than near-term meeting odds, and for the euro's rate differential against peers whose own neutral estimates anchor their cycles. Comparable remarks from hawkish members in past easing cycles have tended to surface when the committee was approaching the boundary between cutting as insurance and cutting as stimulus, and the pattern has been that the median, not the hawkish edge, sets the actual stop point. The follow-ons are whether centrist officials endorse the same neutral framing and whether the accompanying discussion of the path, rather than the level, shifts. As commentary rather than a decision, the signal is directional and the estimate itself is a judgement, not a policy commitment.