ECB’s Lane: 2024 Inflation Forecast Still Distant From Target

20 December 2023

By Isabel Teles – FRANKFURT (Econostream) – European Central Bank Executive Board member Philip Lane on Wednesday said that the 2024 inflation forecast was a long way from the ECB’s definition of price stability.

Speaking at the Economic and Social Research Institute in Dublin, Lane said that the 2.6% inflation projection for 2024 was ‘quite a distance from 2%’ especially considering the developments in wages, consumer demand and services.

Even with inflation figures falling faster than expected, ‘it is not necessarily persistent disinflation, and this is why we remain concerned', he said.

‘This is essentially a prolonged second-round effect. Those big price increases in 2022 means there is a second round of wage increases coming up’, he said.

Victory over inflation should not be assumed, he said.