ECB must keep inflation fight as top priority, de Guindos says

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank must prioritize its fight against high inflation because that will in turn improve the currency bloc's overall financial stability, ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos said on Wednesday.

"It's very difficult to have financial stability without price stability," he told a news conference. "I think that the main risk now for financial stability, for growth, is to have inflation at very high levels."

Critics have said that rapid rate hikes by the ECB are fuelling market volatility and exacerbating a downturn, so the ECB's own actions may be harming stability.

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Toby Chopra)

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