(Bloomberg) -- Lowering borrowing costs isn’t something the European Central Bank will be discussing imminently, according to Chief Economist Philip Lane.

“The December inflation number broadly confirms our assessment from the December meeting and our December projections,” Lane told the REBUILD conference in Dublin. He said officials “are going to be looking at the incoming data,” but that interest-rate cuts aren’t “a kind of near-term topic.”

ECB policymakers are at odds with markets over the timing of the first reduction in the deposit rate, which currently stands at 4%. Investors see a first move already in the spring — sooner than most central bankers have been signaling.

President Christine Lagarde said Thursday that the ECB will start reducing rates once it’s sure inflation is headed back to the 2% goal, though she didn’t give specific guidance on how soon that could be.

Lane echoed that sentiment, saying that only when “we have developed sufficient confidence that we are firmly on our way back to 2% inflation” the topic of rate cuts “will come to the forefront.”

--With assistance from Mark Schroers.

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