AN April interest rate increase is possible as the European Central Bank continues its mission to control inflation, ECB Executive Board member Jose Manuel Gonzalez-Paramo said in an interview published yesterday.

Asked about the impact of a rate hike for Spain, whose economy is recovering at a slower pace than others in the eurozone, Gonzalez-Paramo said the consequences would be the same.

"It must be clear that the ECB does not think about a specific country when taking these decisions, but about the eurozone as a whole," Gonzalez-Paramo told Spanish newspaper El Mundo.