Eurozone inflation remains negative ahead of ECB meeting - ING

Bert Colijn, a Senior Economist at ING, notes that inflation in the eurozone remains stable at -0.3% in November. But with inflation this low for quite some time and not much improvement expected ahead, the ECB will certainly take action next week, he suggested.

"The inflation rate has been stable at -0.3% since September in the eurozone and the same holds for core inflation at 0.2%. The underlying differences between October and November were small..."

"Still, the overall trend is clear, inflation will remain depressed. With a vaccine around the corner, there is room for recovery but unemployment has been trending up, which makes the outlook for inflation recovery slow at best. The lengthening of lockdown measures into December or in some cases even January certainly does not help."

"Given that core inflation is stubbornly low and will recover even more slowly than previously expected due to the second lockdown- this will be reflected in the macroeconomic projections that the ECB will present next week."

"As this has been the base case for some time now, it will without a doubt make the ECB loosen policy once again."