{"id":5477,"date":"2023-05-24T19:20:46","date_gmt":"2023-05-24T14:20:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/?p=5477"},"modified":"2023-05-24T19:20:51","modified_gmt":"2023-05-24T14:20:51","slug":"inflation-crashes-the-party-as-ecb-marks-25-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/business\/inflation-crashes-the-party-as-ecb-marks-25-years\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation crashes the party as ECB marks 25 years"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Frankfurt, Germany, May 24: The European Central Bank celebrated its 25th anniversary Wednesday but soaring inflation in the eurozone threatened to put a damper on festivities at the Frankfurt-based financial institution.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>To mark the occasion, around 200 guests will descend in the evening on the ECB&#8217;s imposing steel-and-glass tower on the banks of the Main river in Germany&#8217;s financial capital.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>With music from French composer Claude Debussy playing, ECB president Christine Lagarde will cut a cake as she is joined by two of her predecessors, Jean-Claude Trichet and Mario Draghi.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But against a challenging economic backdrop, the mood may not be as jubilant as ECB bosses hoped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Inflation in the eurozone surged to record highs over the past 12 months, as Russia&#8217;s invasion of Ukraine drove up energy prices and the recovery from the Covid pandemic caused widespread supply chain woes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The closely watched indicator sat at seven percent in April &#8212; down from a peak of 10.6 percent in October, but still well above the ECB&#8217;s two-percent target.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Nevertheless, Lagarde sought to use the anniversary to highlight the achievements of monetary union.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The euro &#8212; used by nearly 350 million people across 20 countries with diverse economies &#8212; was &#8220;more than a currency&#8221;, she wrote in a blog post.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;It is the strongest form of European integration and stands for a united Europe that works together, protecting and benefiting all its citizens,&#8221; Lagarde added.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;And the ECB will always be a cornerstone of that effort.&#8221;<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Frankfurt, Germany, May 24: The European Central Bank celebrated its 25th anniversary Wednesday but soaring inflation in the eurozone threatened to put a damper on festivities at the Frankfurt-based financial institution. To mark the occasion, around 200 guests will descend in the evening on the ECB&#8217;s imposing steel-and-glass tower on the banks of the Main [&hellip;]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":5478,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,396],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5477","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","category-latest"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5477"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5477\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5477"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5477"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.asiafreepress.com\/en_gb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5477"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}