Eurostat's flash estimate for April Eurozone inflation came in at 3.0% — the highest reading since September 2023 — up from 2.6% in March and slightly above the 2.9% market consensus. [1] Energy prices were the engine: 10.9% year-on-year, more than double March's 5.1% rate. [2] The ECB's analysts have estimated the closure of the Strait of Hormuz has added more than a percentage point to euro-area headline inflation over two months.

The paper said Saturday the central-bank denial round was running on the assumption that the energy shock is temporary. The April 30 ECB decision held the deposit facility rate at 2% and described "upside risks to inflation and downside risks to growth" as having "intensified." [1] Translated from Frankfurt: the dovish wing of the Governing Council has gone quiet, and the rate path that markets had priced for the second half of 2026 — two more cuts — is no longer in the staff projections.

The composition of the print is the political fact. Services held at 3.0%, food at 2.5%, non-energy industrial goods at 0.8%. [2] The shock is not in the labor market or the supply chain; it is in the barrel. A war premium of $25–$35 a barrel, a blockade running into its eleventh week, and an OPEC+ that on Sunday added 188,000 bpd into the premium rather than cutting — the inflation print is the receipt for those choices.

The cost-of-living debate in European parliaments was, until February, a debate about wage settlements and grocery margins. It is now a war debate, conducted in the language of price indices. The 10.9% number is the line that ends every conversation.

-- HENDRIK VAN DER BERG, Brussels