The ecb just changed its language. rate hikes are back on the table.

Christine Lagarde walked into Thursday's press conference carrying the weight of two very public failures. She knows it. The markets know it. And that shared memory shaped every word she chose to say — and not say — about the Persian Gulf conflict now rattling Europe's energy supply chains.

A single phrase that veteran watchers recognized immediately

No rate move came on Thursday. The deposit rate holds at 2%. But the real story was never about the number — it was about the vocabulary. Buried inside the ecb's statement was the return of a phrase that central bank linguists treat like a flare gun: