[Text/Observer.com Liu Chenghui] According to Reuters report, European Central Bank Governor Lagarde said in an interview on November 1 that the main task of Europe is to stabilize prices, and all feasible means must be used to achieve this goal to ensure that the inflation rate is brought back to 2%. She stressed that even if the possibility of an economic recession in the euro zone increases, the ECB must continue to raise interest rates in to fight inflation.
Reuters reported
Current European Central Bank President and former president of the International Monetary Fund Lagarde (data photo)
Lagarde warned that the longer inflation stays at a high level, the greater the risks faced by the entire economy. She did not specify when the ECB may stop hikes.
"The goal is clear, but we have not achieved it yet." She said, "We will raise interest rates further in the future."
She added: "Our task is to stabilize prices, and we must use the available tools to achieve this goal." "We are determined to take necessary measures to achieve the goal of bringing inflation back to 2%.
After the outbreak of the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, the impact of the energy crisis on inflation in European countries continues. In October this year, inflation rates in 19 countries in the euro zone are expected to change again, reaching 10.7%. This will be the first time since 1997 that inflation rate in euro has exceeded the 10% threshold.
Eurozone inflation rate hit another record. The figure of " New York Times "
EU Statistics Bureau (Eurostatatml2) released on October 31, showing that the inflation rate of eurozone countries in October rose by 0.8 percentage points compared with September (9.9%). Overall, rising energy prices are still the main reason for the record inflation rate.
It is worth noting that the situation varies between different member states of the euro zone.
Baltic countries ( Estonia , Lithuania and Latvia ) are still the countries with the most severe fluctuations in the energy market, with inflation rates all remaining above 20%, among which Estonia ranked first among the euro zone countries with 22.4%; Italy's inflation rate was higher than analysts' expectations, up 12.8% year-on-year; Germany's inflation rate jumped to 11.6%; although the inflation rate is expected to be 7.1%, France is still the least affected country.
"Politician" News Network said that inflation in the euro zone reached 10.7%
"Politician" News Network European version quoted Commerzbank economist Christoph Weil as saying that European inflation may not have reached its peak. He pointed out that the inflation rate was "significantly higher than expected" due to "a comprehensive strong rise in prices." Will predicts euro zone inflation may break through 11% by the end of the year.
Inflation remained high. The European Central Bank held a meeting on October 27 to decide to raise interest rates by 75 basis points again. This is the second sharp interest rate hike since September 8 by 75 basis points. Since the beginning of this year, the European Central Bank has raised interest rates by 200 basis points, which has also triggered concerns about the European economy falling into recession.
Last week, an important survey by the European Central Bank showed that most experts expect the eurozone to have negative economic growth from the third quarter of this year to the first quarter of 2023, with a cumulative decline of 0.7 percentage points. By 2023, they expect the eurozone economy to basically stagnate.
Olli Rehn, a member of the European Central Bank's governance committee, even pointed out that Europe is once again at risk of stagflation.
In economics, "stagflation" is usually accompanied by high inflation, high unemployment and a recession economy. In layman's terms, prices rise but the economy is stagnant. It is the result of the long-term development of inflation, and the last time Europe encountered stagflation was in the 1970s.
"The risks facing global financial stability are rising, and the stagflation crisis has increased," Ren said.
This article is an exclusive article of Observer.com and may not be reproduced without authorization.
