Christine Lagarde has said the European Central Bank will be unable to commit to a particular path of interest rate cuts once it starts to ease monetary policy, despite signs that wage growth has peaked in the eurozone.

The ECB president’s comments indicate that even if it starts to cut borrowing costs in June — as many investors expect after inflation fell sharply over the past year — it is likely to keep markets guessing on the timing and scale of potential rate cuts.

Lagarde told a conference of ECB watchers in Frankfurt on Wednesday that continued high wage growth and weak productivity in the eurozone meant services inflation was expected “to remain elevated for most of this year”. This meant it would need to continue checking that “incoming data supports our inflation outlook”, she said.