Euro-area inflation jumps to decade-high 3% in challenge for ECB

Euro-area inflation jumped to the highest in a decade in August, testing policy makers’ insistence that a post-crisis spike in cost pressures should prove temporary. 
 

Consumer prices rose 3%, exceeding the predictions of all 37 economists in a Bloomberg survey. A measure of core inflation that strips out volatile items such as energy and food reached 1.6%, the highest since 2012.  

The data will heighten the European Central Bank’s communication challenge as a global supply squeeze and one-time factors drive up costs, while the pandemic threat persists. Viewing faster inflation as temporary, officials are keeping monetary policy looser than counterparts