This morning I feel like qouting myself:

Over the past month, CEE and other non-euro European currencies have indeed been strengthening. This is ‘forcing’ central banks from the Swedish Riksbank to the Polish central bank to cut interest rates. So, we are getting a double effect of European monetary policy. The ECB is easing monetary policy, which on its own is stimulating Central and Eastern European growth through an export channel and at the same time the CEE central banks is moving towards further monetary easing, which is directly stimulating CEE domestic demand. This is good news for the CEE fixed income and equity markets particularly and for the CEE economies in general. As a result, we are becoming more upbeat on the outlook for growth in Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

This is essentially what we call an intra-Europe hot-potato effect. The ECB is creating liquidity, some of which is spreading across Europe, like a hot potato being passed along. It is basically all part of a European portfolio rebalancing, combined with a monetary reaction in countries such as Poland.

We think this hot-potato effect will force CEE central banks to cut interest rates further to curb the appreciation of their currencies. This is likely to push the key policy rates of countries such as Poland, Hungary and Romania closer to the zero lower bound and, ultimately, this could force the central banks to use other policy instruments than the interest rate such as quantitative easing or currency intervention. The Czech Republic is already at the zero lower bound and the Czech central bank (CNB) has put a floor under EUR/CZK at 27. It has recently inched close to this floor and it is becoming increasingly likely that the CNB will be forced to intervene in the FX market to defend it. This is likely to cause increased focus on the underlying appreciation pressure on all of the CEE currencies.

And yes, this is an intra-European currency war and I believe it is good news for European growth. In a deflationary, slow growth scenario you should celebrate when central banks competie to ease monetary policy.