ECB's Simkus says a hike in September is "not going to be enough", Econostream reports. 50bps hike is not needed.

• Not "particularly" worried about the increase in long-term bond yields.
• Expect the updated projections to show the interest rate path to move up a bit.

Simkus sits on the hawkish end of the Governing Council and has consistently argued for tighter policy, so comments in this register are broadly in character and tend to shift pricing only insofar as they hint at where the centre of the Council is migrating. The combination here is the more telling part: rejecting a September hike as sufficient while simultaneously saying a 50bp step is not needed reads as an argument for multiple further 25bp moves rather than a single large one, a distinction that matters for how far out the curve terminal pricing extends versus how much the immediate meeting reprices. The dismissal of long-term yield increases is a recurring tell from hawks: when the tightening wing is relaxed about the back end selling off, it signals no appetite for any yield-suppression pushback, which in past cycles has freed the curve to bear-flatten further. His expectation that updated projections will show a higher rate path, if borne out at the next meeting, has historically mattered more than the verbal guidance, since revised staff projections have been the mechanism by which the Council moves market pricing without committing itself. The follow-ons are whether centrists echo the 'not enough' framing and whether the projections indeed shift; single-official remarks of this kind otherwise fade within the session.