By Don Nico Forbes and Ed Frankl
The European Central Bank said it was unable to overlook the energy shock at its meeting in June, when higher energy prices were expected to push inflation above its 2% target over the medium term.
The ECB's governing council last month made a unanimous decision to raise its key interest rate to 2.25%, becoming the first major central bank to hike on the back of elevated energy prices due to the war in Iran.
"It was now clear that the current situation no longer qualified as a case for looking through the shock," the ECB said in its account of the June meeting.
It said the move shouldn't be seen as an insurance hike, but instead a decision that was "robust" according to both its baseline outlook and the full range of alternative scenarios that the ECB had assessed.
