Columbia Threadneedle's Global Head of Absolute Return Fixed Income, Keith Patton, said with the ECB almost guaranteed to hike later, the key will be President Christine Lagarde's response to the inevitable questions about further increases ahead.
"Depending on the language she uses, the market is probably waiting for a more dovish, data dependent call," Patton said.
"The key question for me is have they done any modelling on what the detriment to growth will be if they did do another hike?"
Traders currently price ECB rates rising to 2.74% by December, implying almost two 25-basis-point hikes. But they are also pricing in an additional one by this time next year and roughly a 40% chance of a fourth move.
Germany's 10-year bond yield DE10YT=RR was hovering at 3.43%, after reaching 3.4389% on Wednesday, the highest since the heat of the euro zone crisis in April 2011.
France's OAT yield was at 4.335% after it had surged to a post-2008 high of 4.34% while the UK's 10-year and 20-year yields bobbed near respective post-2007 and 1998 highs of 5.26% and 5.87%.
Benchmark 10-year U.S. Treasury yields meanwhile nudged up to 4.85% after an eventful previous session that had seen Donald Trump promise to pay every U.S. adult a $5,000 "Trump dividend" if his party wins November's congressional elections.
The Treasury Department had also announced a $6 billion buyback of longer-dated U.S. bonds that disappointed some investors.
"Spending 4% of GDP to win an election," while the Treasury is buying bonds at the long end, "policy is not coherent," Columbia Threadneedle's Patton said.
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