ZURICH—The European Central Bank could begin increasing interest rates before ending its bond purchasing programme, ECB policymaker Robert Holzmann said, challenging the bank’s long-held view on the sequence of its upcoming policy moves. With inflation hitting fresh record highs in recent months, the ECB recently walked back on a pledge not to raise rates this year but has long maintained that ending bond purchases comes first, before any interest rate increase. This stance on “sequencing” has not been challenged so far and all policymakers speaking in public have accepted the order, focusing their discussion on when bond purchases, known as quantitative easing, should end. “When it comes to the interest rate outlook, the ECB has always signalled that an interest rate hike should not take place until shortly after the bond purchases have ended,” Holzmann said in an interview with Swiss newspaper NZZ. “But it would also be possible to …