Eurozone Core Inflation Increased in March to All-Time High of 5.7%

The news was reported by Eurostat, the official statistical agency of the EU, noting that the measure of “core inflation” excludes items such as food and energy, supposedly due to their volatility. “Headline inflation,” on the other hand, includes such categories, and that measure dropped in March because of falling energy prices. However, “Policymakers at the ECB won’t read too much into the drop in headline inflation in March and will be more concerned that the core rate hit a new record high,” Jack Allen-Reynolds, deputy chief Eurozone economist at Capital Economics, said, as cited by CNBC. They and other media report that it’s therefore expected that the ECB will increase interest rates again at their next meeting.