Brussels – Everything was as expected, or almost. Eurozone inflation in March fell 0.1 percentage point to 2.2 percent, in line with the preliminary reading. Eurostat confirms the provisional estimates, updating the details of the final result. Energy (-1 percent in March, down from 0.2 percent in February) and services (3.5 percent, down from 3.7 percent in the previous month) drove down the cost of living. By contrast, the non-energy industrial goods component was stable (0.6 percent, unchanged). Rising, however, is the cost of food, alcohol, and tobacco (2.9 percent, up from 2.7 percent in February).
Cost-of-living trends remain uneven across countries, with EU states with below-average currency, such as Ireland (1.8 percent), Luxembourg (1.5 percent), and even more so France (0.9 percent) and other countries grappling instead with higher inflation, as in Croatia and Estonia (4.3 percent in both cases). Of note is Italy’s 0.4 percentage point increase in just one month, between February and March.
Unless there are further revisions, the final figure is good news for European states with the single currency and a valuable point of reflection for the decisions the central bank will make tomorrow (April 17) at the Governing Council meeting. With the level of inflation close to the European Central Bank’s benchmark target of 2 percent, one waits to see to what extent the board may opt for a further interest rate cut.
Uncertainty posed by the trade scenario is weighing on the decisions. US tariffs and EU counter-tariffs are only pausing, and intention to pause in interest rate cuts due to rising downside factors and risks to the economy and inflation may prevail. After all, the president of the Eurotower, Christine Lagarde, has not hidden her fears over euro-dollar exchange rate due to trade tensions.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
