ECB's Kocher says important how long-lived inflation proves to be and there are threats to price stability; there's alertness and no complacency

• The European economy is showing more momentum now.

Kocher sits at the hawkish end of the Governing Council, and commentary from that wing tends to carry less information about the median path than remarks from the centre or the doves; single-official soundings have historically moved the front end only at the margin unless they signal a broader shift. The framing here, persistence of inflation and threats to price stability with no complacency, is the standard hawk vocabulary used to resist premature easing, and in past episodes of this kind the follow-on question has been whether it hardens into opposition to the next cut or merely conditions timing. The nod to improving economic momentum matters mechanically: stronger growth removes the counterargument that restrictive policy is imposing undue cost, which historically narrows the debate on the Council toward holding rather than easing. The distinction worth drawing is between rhetoric that re-prices timing at the front of the curve and rhetoric that shifts the perceived terminal or neutral level, with the former the usual outcome of isolated hawkish comment. The tells are whether more centrist members echo the persistence concern and how the remarks sit against upcoming inflation prints, since alert-but-waiting language raises the data sensitivity of each release. As commentary rather than a decision, the signal is directional.