LONDON, Nov 4 (Reuters) - Long-dated euro zone bond yields edged higher on Thursday with the market predicting that the Bank of England will be the first major central bank to hike rates since the onset of the COVID-19 crisis when it meets later in the day. Following the U.S. Federal Reserve announcement overnight that it would taper its bond purchases, money markets are predicting that the BoE will hike rates on Thursday as policymakers around the world grapple with runaway inflation. “Spill-overs from the BoE decision should be in store today for Bunds with the market pricing a 15bp hike of the base rate to at today’s meeting, followed by more aggressive tightening throughout 2022,” analysts at Commerzbank said in a note, adding they too believe the meeting could deliver a 15 basis point hike. German Bund yields, the benchmark for the single currency bloc, rose 1-3 basis points across the curve, with the long-dated 30-year yield rising 2.5 bps to 0.174% at one stage. Other high-grade euro zone bond yields were also up 1-2 basis points at the open., British 10-year borrowing costs, which have doubled since mid-August, were a basis point lower at 1.06%. Central banks have been grappling with how to deal with high inflation readings from around the world when the global economy is still recovering from the COVID-19 crisis. ECB chief Christine Lagarde said last week that the bank’s last meeting was about “inflation, inflation, inflation”. Subsequently, yields across the bloc rose to their highest levels in months. On Wednesday, Lagarde moved to calm markets by saying rate hikes were unlikely in 2022, and this has anchored yields to an extent across the bloc. That said, Germany’s 10-year government bond yields, at -0.17%, are more than 30 bps higher than where they were in August. Also on Thursday, initial readings of the purchasing managers’ index (PMI) business survey are due for the Spanish and Italian services sectors, with markets expecting both to be in healthy expansion. A final reading of German and euro zone PMI surveys for October are also due on Thursday. (Reporting by Abhinav Ramnarayan; editing by Barbara Lewis)