ECB’s Sleijpen does not expect second-round inflation effects

Second-round-effects language has been the standard ECB formulation since the post-pandemic inflation episode, when the risk of wage-price persistence was the stated justification for holding policy restrictive after headline inflation had rolled over. A governing council member saying such effects are not expected is the dovish variant of that framing: it removes one of the principal arguments for caution on easing and shifts the debate to whether demand weakness, rather than wage catch-up, is the dominant inflation driver. The distinction worth drawing is between a judgment about current dynamics and a promise about policy: remarks of this kind have historically moved the front end only at the margin, with the larger repricing coming when several officials converge on the same framing ahead of a meeting, since it is the committee median that sets the path. Sleijpen sits among the newer Dutch cohort on the council and has tended to position within the mainstream rather than at either hawkish or dovish extreme, so the tone is informative about where the centre of gravity is drifting. Worth watching is whether colleagues echo the dismissal of second-round risk in subsequent appearances and how it sits against the next negotiated wage and services inflation prints, which are the series the ECB itself has flagged as decisive. As commentary rather than a decision, the signal is directional toward a lower bar for easing.