Spanish Economy Minister Nadia Calvino on Thursday said she hoped the rate hike announced by the European Central Bank would be the last one and that she was eager to hear the bank's explanations for the decision.

"We hope that it will be clear from (their explanations) that this hike puts an end to the rapid increase in interest rates that we have seen over the last year," Calvino told reporters in the northwestern city of Santiago de Compostela.

The ECB raised its key interest rate to a record peak on Thursday and signalled this will likely be its final move in a more than one-year-long fight against stubbornly high inflation.

(Reporting by Inti Landauro; Editing by David Latona)