Inflation in the euro zone remains too high, necessitating further tightening of monetary policy by the European Central Bank (ECB), its president, Christine Lagarde, said on Thursday.
“Inflation is too high and should stay that way for too long,” he said in a speech. “We are determined to quickly bring it back to our medium-term target of 2%.
Objective, return to 2%
“That is why we have raised interest rates at the fastest pace in history and have made it clear that we still have some way to go to bring interest rates down to sufficiently restrictive levels,” he said.
Eurozone price inflation slowed somewhat more than expected in May and core inflation, which excludes energy and unprocessed food, also moderated, but is still around three times above target.
Prices rose 6.1% year-on-year last month in the 20 countries that share the European currency, after 7.0% in April, the first estimated data published on Thursday by Eurostat, the European institute for statistics, shows. It had hit a record in October 2022, at 10.6% year-on-year.
Source: BFM TV
