{"id":24174,"date":"2015-01-31T20:09:20","date_gmt":"2015-01-31T19:09:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/?p=24174"},"modified":"2015-01-31T20:09:21","modified_gmt":"2015-01-31T19:09:21","slug":"sharp-drop-in-prices-in-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/sharp-drop-in-prices-in-the-eu\/","title":{"rendered":"Sharp Drop in Prices in the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The eurozone experienced negative inflation for the second month in a row, according to a flash estimate published today (30 January) by Eurostat, the European Union\u2019s statistical office. Inflation is expected to be at -0.6%, with consumer prices falling further than economists had forecast.<\/p>\n<p>The fall represents the biggest decline in prices in the history of the euro. It is down from -0.2% in December. Economists had expected a -0.5% drop. A separate paper published today recorded eurozone unemployment at 11.4% in December, compared with 9.9% across the EU as a whole.<\/p>\n<p>The drop was driven by the fall in energy prices (-8.9%, compared with -6.3% in December). Prices are expected to fall for food, alcohol and tobacco (-0.1%, compared with 0.0% in December) and non-energy industrial goods (-0.1%, compared with 0.0% in December). Only prices for services are expected to increase (1.0%, compared with 1.2% in December).<\/p>\n<p>The deflationary spiral comes as Mario Draghi, the president of the European Central Bank (ECB), is trying to tackle deflation with a policy of quantitative easing. Last week he announced a bond-buying plan that will inject \u20ac60 billion a month into the economy from March this year until September 2016.<\/p>\n<p>The ECB\u2019s target rate for inflation is close to, but below, 2%.<\/p>\n<p>Core inflation, which excludes volatile energy and unprocessed food prices, was at 0.6% in January, down from 0.7% over the previous three months.\u00a0The ECB has characterised any rate below 1% as a \u201cdanger zone\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>Headline inflation has also been in what the ECB calls the \u201cdanger zone\u201d below 1% since October 2013. The ECB aims to keep inflation just under 2% over the medium term.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/sharp-drop-in-prices-in-the-eu\/bond-buying-in-eu\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-24175\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-24175\" src=\"http:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Bond-Buying-in-EU.jpg\" alt=\"Bond Buying in EU\" width=\"376\" height=\"266\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Bond-Buying-in-EU.jpg 376w, https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/Bond-Buying-in-EU-300x212.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 376px) 100vw, 376px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The eurozone experienced negative inflation for the second month in a row, according to a flash estimate published today (30 January) by Eurostat, the European Union\u2019s statistical office. Inflation is expected to be at -0.6%, with consumer prices falling further &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/sharp-drop-in-prices-in-the-eu\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":22,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24174","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-big-banks","category-finance"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24174","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/22"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24174"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24174\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24177,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24174\/revisions\/24177"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24174"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24174"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.w-t-w.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24174"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}