The crown firmed against the euro on Wednesday, testing a multi-year high and outperforming central European peers as markets weighed chances of whether Czech interest rates could rise this year.

The Czech National Bank has voted 5-2 at its last three monetary policy meetings to keep rates stable, with the minority wanting a hike, and is balancing domestic inflationary pressures with uncertainties abroad affecting. Policymaker comments this week showed debate over tighter policy was still alive, helping push the crown towards the key 25 mark versus the euro from a 23-month high scaled on Tuesday. A spike in inflation, seen in data on Monday, has also boosted the market.

At 0929 GMT, the crown was 0.1% stronger at 25.124 per euro, just off its highest level of 25.120 seen since the central bank ended an intervention regime keeping the crown weak in 2017.

Most other central European currencies were unchanged or a tad weaker. The Czech unit is off to a blistering start, gaining over 1% versus the euro in the first two weeks of the year.

In contrast, the Hungarian forint, last year's worst performer in the region due in part to the National Bank of Hungary's loose policy stance, continued its struggles, already shedding another 0.6% against the euro. For the forint, there was little help from the Hungarian central bank, which has repeatedly said it had no exchange rate target and was only looking at long-term currency movements to assess whether they affected inflation trends.