FRANKFURT: European Central Bank policymaker Robert Holzmann said on Thursday he hoped the ECB will be able to reduce the pace of its emergency bond purchases in third quarter of the year.

"The decision for the third quarter will be (made by) the end of the second quarter and hopefully by that time there will be a possibility to reduce again the purchases," he said in a televised interview with CNBC.

The Austrian governor was echoing similar remarks by his Dutch peer Klaas Knot in a Reuters interview earlier this week.