Interview with Isabel Schnabel, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Balázs Korányi and Reinhard Becker on 21 May 2026

26 May 2026

Please give us your assessment of inflation developments since your last policy meeting.

Inflation has already risen to 3% and according to market expectations, it’s going to rise further, towards 4% at the end of the year.

What matters for monetary policy is the size and persistence of the shock. By historical standards, this shock is very large.

Oil prices stand above the levels we assumed in the March baseline scenario, and both oil and gas prices are much higher than they were before the war.

Our hope that this conflict would be resolved quickly has not materialised. The shock is much more persistent. In terms of persistence, we have actually moved beyond the adverse scenario, which assumed a rapid normalisation of oil prices.

The futures curve suggests that oil prices are expected to remain elevated over a significant period of…