{"id":862769,"date":"2026-03-31T14:49:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/862769\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T14:49:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T14:49:18","slug":"war-and-oil-shock-push-europes-inflation-higher-reigniting-rate-debate-euobserver","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/862769\/","title":{"rendered":"War and oil shock push Europe\u2019s inflation higher, reigniting rate debate \u2013 EUobserver"},"content":{"rendered":"

Eurozone inflation climbed to 2.5 percent in March, up from 1.9 percent in February, as energy costs surged in the wake of Israeli-US strikes on Iran, according to a flash estimate<\/a> published Tuesday (31 March) by the EU statistics bureau Eurostat.<\/p>\n

It is the steepest monthly rise since 2022, when Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine and the ensuing gas disruption sent benchmark prices spiralling across Europe.\u00a0<\/p>\n

This time fossil fuels were again almost entirely responsible for the uptick of inflation. Energy prices are now 4.9 percent higher than a year ago \u2014\u00a0 up from 3.1 percent annually just a month ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Inflation in other sectors remained broadly stable. This reflects the temporary delay with which the physical oil and liquid gas disruptions from the gulf reach European shores.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The delay of physical-supply disruption was captured in a map released by US investment bank JP Morgan, showing that ships stop arriving in Asia already this week, hitting Europe next week and the US mid-April.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Iran\u2019s closure of the Strait of Hormuz has removed one-fifth of global oil and liquid gas supply, which the International Energy Agency has already described<\/a> as the \u201clargest supply disruption in history.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is still unclear how high prices could rise. <\/p>\n

The global benchmark oil prices traded above $115 [\u20ac99.7] a barrel on Tuesday.\u00a0But oil market analysts are starting to consider the prospect of unprecedented $200 a barrel<\/a> prices.<\/p>\n

The uptick of inflation reignited debate over whether the European Central Bank should raise interest rates.\u00a0<\/p>\n

ECB executive board member Isabel Schnabel, considered one of the bank\u2019s more hawkish policymakers, has urged caution.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no need to rush into action,\u201d she said at an university lecture in Z\u00fcrich on Friday.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The ECB is ill-suited to prevent oil and gas prices from rising and is therefore more focused on so-called second-round effects, such as strong wage or profit increases.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Eurozone inflation climbed to 2.5 percent in March, up from 1.9 percent in February, as energy costs surged…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":862770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[217083,2000,299,5187,231412,239339,245512,245510,239337,231410,245511,239338,231411],"class_list":{"0":"post-862769","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-typedefinedterm","9":"tag-eu","10":"tag-europe","11":"tag-european","12":"tag-identifier4293","13":"tag-identifier4420","14":"tag-identifier4477","15":"tag-nameecb","16":"tag-nameenergy","17":"tag-nameiran","18":"tag-termcodeecb","19":"tag-termcodeenergy","20":"tag-termcodeiran"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116324346714708534","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}