Interview with Luis de Guindos, Vice-President of the ECB, conducted by Éric Albert on 16 April 2024 and published on 23 April 2024

23 April 2024

In March, inflation in the euro area was 2.4%, close to your 2% target. Has the battle against inflation been won?

The battle isn’t over, but we have notched up several important victories along the road to disinflation. We have gone from 10% headline inflation to 2.4%. Core inflation is also falling and is now below 3%. All the indicators are moving in the right direction. We’re not there yet, but the end is in sight. We think we will reach our 2% target in 2025.

Looking beyond geopolitical risks, the largest remaining threat stems from inflation in the services sector, mainly driven by wages. But here, too, there is a clear slowdown in the dynamics: wages were increasing at a rate above 5% a couple of quarters ago but were growing at just over 4% in the last quarter of 2023.