"Crisis" interest rate now gone - ECB's Nowotny

VIENNA (Reuters) - The European Central Bank's decision to raise its key lending rate to 1.5 percent shows it is no longer necessary to keep rates at levels seen during the financial crisis, ECB Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny was quoted as saying.

"The crisis interest rate is gone," the Austria Press Agency quoted him as saying, adding that the ECB expected inflation "to come close to 2 percent again in 2012" and that the central bank would "continue to observe this development very closely."

Nowotny said the public finance situation in some euro zone states such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal was "thoroughly serious and difficult," APA quoted him as saying in an interview on Thursday.

(Reporting by Michael Shields)