(Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau has thrown down the gauntlet to his colleagues on the Governing Council, raising the prospect of loosening monetary policy at any of their next meetings.

Speaking in an interview with La Tribune Dimanche, the French central banker said that there will be interest-rate cuts this year. “Regarding the exact date, not one is excluded, and everything will be open at our next meetings,” he said.

The comments highlight emerging divisions among officials just days after President Christine Lagarde said there was consensus at last week’s Governing Council meeting that it “was premature to discuss rate cuts.”

It’s also a challenge to policymakers including Klaas Knot of the Netherlands, who insist that the ECB will need to see a turnaround in wages before it can start lowering borrowing costs, comments that point to June as the earliest opportunity for any move. 

Knot — who reiterated the importance of those numbers in a TV interview on Sunday — isn’t alone in demanding clarity on salary increases. Others including Chief Economist Philip Lane, Estonia’s Madis Muller and Bostjan Vasle of Slovenia have stressed their importance.

Lane earlier this month said that “the most complete dataset is in the Eurostat national accounts data” and that won’t be available until the end of April — arriving too late for the ECB’s meeting near the start of that month. Still, he qualified those comments by saying that there are “other data that we will be looking at every week.”

Also in the patience camp are Austrian uber-hawk Robert Holzmann — who has said that there may be no rate cuts at all this year — and Martins Kazaks of Latvia and Boris Vujcic, who both warned about going too early when they spoke with Bloomberg Television on Friday.

By contrast Villeroy said waiting too long could be a problem.

“We will have to avoid two risks that have become balanced: cutting too soon and missing the target, but also acting too late and excessively slowing activity,” he said. 

The Frenchman isn’t alone though. Portugal’s Mario Centeno has said that a move could come before May, while Gediminas Simkus said Friday that he’s open-minded on an April step and will look at the data that arrives in the meantime.

Villeroy also has investors on his side. Money markets now point to a near 90% chance of a quarter-point rate cut by April, with 146 basis points of easing expected for the whole year. 

Half a dozen policymakers speaking this week are likely to add to the cacophony. Vice President Luis de Guindos kicks things off on Monday, Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, Lane, Vujcic and Vasle are due Tuesday, and Centeno on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. 

Lane speaks again on Thursday too, less than two hour after data are likely to show that euro-zone inflation slowed to 2.7% in January. 

--With assistance from Jenny Che, Diederik Baazil and Cagan Koc.

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