(Bloomberg) -- European Central Bank Governing Council member Ignazio Visco said he isn’t seeing unreasonable boosts to euro-zone salaries -- despite consumers grappling with the fastest inflation since the common currency was created. 

Visco, who also heads Italy’s central bank, said policy makers are alert to the danger of so-called second-round effects, where rising consumer prices trigger demands for higher pay, further fueling inflation. But, so far, upward pressure is muted.

“We aren’t seeing excessive wage increases in Europe,” Visco told Bloomberg’s Capital Markets Forum in Milan on Wednesday. “Negotiated wages are still on average at 2%, while in the U.S. they’re 6%. There might be pressure. We know that we have to be very careful on that.”

The war in Ukraine is further fanning the surge in prices, with energy costs in focus due to Russia’s status as one of the world’s biggest oil and natural gas exporters. But Visco’s comments on salaries chime with remarks by ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos, who told Handelsblatt recently that he doesn’t see inflation feeding through to wage demands.

A case in point is Spain, where some workers are proposing only gradual pay increases over the coming years -- provided companies restrain dividends and the selling prices of their goods.  

Beyond inflation, concern about economic growth is building. In some of the first data since the invasion, the European Commission said Wednesday that euro-area consumer confidence sank in March to its lowest level since the early months of the pandemic. 

Dismissing talk of stagflation, however, ECB President Christine Lagarde said this week that economic expansion will be maintained even under a “severe” scenario in which the conflict worsens and the sanctions response is more forceful.

Visco concurred, saying that if the war doesn’t last too long, “we may certainly not have stagnation with inflation.”

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