Eurostat's flash estimate Friday put April eurozone inflation at 3.0 percent, up from 2.6 percent in March. [1] Energy printed at +10.9 percent year on year, services +3.0 percent, food and alcohol +2.5 percent, other goods +0.8 percent. The energy line did the heavy lifting. The Apr 30 paper read the Bank of England's hold-with-rate-rise warning as the central bank putting the war's cost into rate guidance; the eurozone print does it in the data.

Q1 GDP printed at +0.1 percent quarter on quarter. [2] The combination — 3.0 percent headline, +0.1 percent growth, +10.9 percent energy — is the textbook definition of the stagflation scenario the ECB has been describing publicly since mid-April. CNBC's coverage of the April 30 ECB rate decision quoted Lagarde's "upside-inflation, downside-growth risks" line as the formal acknowledgement. [3] Friday's flash estimate is the first hard data inside that frame.

The May 1 calendar overlap is the second-order story. International Workers' Day rallies under the "Workers Over Billionaires" banner are running across European capitals while the cost-of-living argument is now a war-cost argument the ECB has put in writing. Lagarde holds rates; energy moves the data; the public reads the petrol-station board.

The composition matters as much as the headline. Services at +3.0 percent is sticky; food at +2.5 percent and other goods at +0.8 percent are roughly normal. The +10.9 percent energy line is what a sustained Brent print above $120 looks like once it works through April invoices. A March print at 2.6 percent moved by 40 basis points in 30 days. The ECB's June meeting now has a rising data series to weigh against a still-contracting growth series. [4]

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels