Euro zone inflation unchanged at 2.2% in April, leaving path open for further ECB interest rate cuts

Euro zone inflation was unchanged at 2.2% in April, missing expectations for a move lower, flash data from statistics agency Eurostat showed Friday.

Economists polled by Reuters had been expecting the reading to come in at 2.1% in April compared to March's 2.2% as inflation has been easing back towards the European Central Bank's 2% target.

Core inflation, which excludes more volatile food, energy, alcohol and tobacco prices, accelerated to 2.7% from March's 2.4%. The closely-watched services inflation print also picked up again, coming in at 3.9% compared to the previous 3.5% reading.

The euro was higher against the U.S. dollar and the British pound following the data release. Bond yields were little changed, with the yield on 10-year German bonds continuing to trade around 3 basis points higher.

The increase in services inflation was likely "driven mainly by Easter timing effects," Franziska Palmas, senior Europe economist at Capital Economics, said in a note. These effects would reverse in the coming month, she added, suggesting that this left the door open for further interest rate cuts from the European Central Bank.

"We think the services rate will decline significantly in the rest of this year as US tariffs weigh on activity and the labour market continues to weaken," Palmas added.

Michael Field, chief equity strategist at Morningstar, meanwhile urged caution, saying tariff uncertainty meant "any level of comfort we have here is precarious." A further escalation of tariff tensions would mean a pick-up of inflation in Europe, he said.

Field added that further ECB rate cuts were still on the table. "This relatively low level of headline inflation keeps the pressure off the ECB, who can in turn lower interest rates further," he said.

ECB President Christine Lagarde told CNBC last week that "we're heading towards our [inflation] target in the course of 2025, so that disinflationary process is so much on track that we are nearing completion."

Lagarde and other policymakers last week warned the picture for inflation was less clear in the medium-term, with factors such as potential retaliation countermeasures from Europe against U.S. tariffs and fiscal shifts like Germany's major infrastructure package coming into play.

Lagarde said the ECB would be "data dependent to the extreme," when making interest rate decisions. The central bank last cut interest rates last month, taking its key rate — the deposit facility rate — to 2.25%, down from highs of 4% in mid-2023.

Several major euro zone economies had already earlier in the week released their latest inflation figures, which are harmonized for comparability across the bloc. Germany's statistics office said Wednesday it expects consumer prices to have risen by 2.2% in April, below the previous month's reading but slightly higher than expected. Meanwhile French harmonized inflation came in at 0.8%, also slightly ahead of expectations.

Data released earlier this week indicated that the euro zone economy could be picking up steam, with the bloc's gross domestic product rising 0.4% in the first quarter of 2025, according to a preliminary reading. This was higher than the forecast of 0.2%, and followed a revised 0.2% growth print in the last quarter of 2024.

Growth is however widely expected to slow in the coming months due to the global tariff fallout.