Interview with Boris Vujčić, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Francesco Canepa on 16 September 2026

18 September 2026

We are speaking less than a week after the ECB’s latest projections were published, and energy prices have already moved well above the baseline. How does this affect your outlook for inflation and growth?

Energy prices have continued to increase, and that was already evident during the Governing Council meeting compared with the cut-off date for the projections. This is also reflected in financial markets: the pricing of the interest rate path is being driven mainly by rising energy prices. In the absence of forward guidance, energy prices have become a focal point for market expectations regarding inflation, the rate path and the terminal rate.

There is a notable change compared with June and the pre-summer period. The expectation now is that energy prices will stay elevated for longer, whereas previously the baseline expectation was that tensions in the…