FRANKFURT-The European Central Bank said Wednesday that it would permit public disclosures on the use of its emergency lending program, lifting the veil on a once-obscure program that took center stage during Europe’s high-stakes negotiations with Greece over a bailout program during the summer.
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Eurozone inflation slowed to 0.1% in August from 0.2% in July, final data from Eurostat showed Wednesday.
Core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was unchanged at 0.3% from a month earlier and 0.9% on a year-over-year basis.
The EU’s Eurostat agency slashed its first estimate of 0.2 percent, with tumbling oil prices having the biggest effect on prices in the single currency bloc.
Such a move could become necessary if inflation weren’t return to the ECB’s medium-term target, as now envisaged by the bank.
“The recovery in euro area house prices appears to be relatively broad-based across groups of countries”, the European Central Bank said.
Although ELA is run through national central banks, the ECB’s full governing council can veto its use with a two- thirds majority. It now predicts price growth at 0.1 percent in 2015 and at 1.1 percent in 2016.
If the price of oil does not continue to go down (it cannot go down indefinitely), we will see a jump in inflation in the last quarter of this year.
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“The chance of further stimulus from the European Central Bank is growing, which could act to weaken the euro in the coming months”, said Craig Erlam, senior market analyst at OANDA.
