Interview with Philip R. Lane, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB, conducted by Stephen Kinsella on 31 August 2023

5 September 2023

Let’s dive straight in and talk about the broad inflation outlook. What are we seeing?

We’re speaking today, 31 August, and this morning we had the flash data for August. Of course, in any given month, the change is relatively small, but what we did see is some easing in the elements of core inflation. So goods inflation and services inflation came down, which is very welcome. But, as I said, one month of data is only one piece of information; we need to see that continue. What I would say is: our calculations are basically that there were very strong price increases a year ago, which will fall out of the data this autumn. So we do expect to see this famous core inflation come down throughout the autumn. Let me now turn to the other big components of energy and food. Energy came in stronger. The first half of this year was dominated by this…