(Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank Governing Council member Gediminas Simkus said he’s leaning toward supporting a three-quarter-point increase in interest rates next month as inflation approaches another all-time high.

The Lithuanian central bank chief told Bloomberg Television on Thursday that a move of 100 basis points would “definitely” be too much at the moment, and that 50 basis points is the minimum.

“75 basis points would be my choice,” Simkus said from Vilnius. “I wouldn’t be surprised to see even higher inflation for September for the euro area.”

“Timely interest-rate hikes, even if they may seem quite a mouthful at the moment, means we might end up at a lower level than if we were taking smaller steps now and forced to implement more hikes later,” he said later in a separate interview.

Simkus joins a chorus of officials pressing for continued big increases in borrowing costs, with data due Friday set to reveal another all-time high for inflation in the 19-nation euro zone in September.

The headline figure is expected to near 10% -- five times the ECB’s 2% target. Steep price gains prompted a historic 75 basis-point hike in rates at the ECB’s meeting this month, matching the recent pace of the Federal Reserve.

Simkus’s Latvian colleague, Martins Kazaks, on Wednesday called for another step of that size in October as the ECB’s next step “still has to be big.” Austria’s Robert Holzmann also backed such a move, with ECB President Christine Lagarde reiterating a pledge for hikes at the next “several meetings.”

That’s despite Russia’s war in Ukraine triggering an energy crisis that most economists now reckon will lead to a European recession. Policy makers assert that returning inflation to the target remains the priority.

(Updates with addition Simkus comment in fourth paragraph.)

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