FRANKFURT—A spike in euro zone inflation to above the European Central Bank’s target is a temporary “hump”, the ECB says—dusting off a metaphor used a decade ago by its then-president Jean-Claude Trichet.
In 2011, the ECB hiked interest rates twice in four months, with Trichet yielding to German pressure despite believing that a commodity-fuelled rise in prices would prove short-lived. That is now acknowledged even by the ECB itself as a policy mistake that exacerbated the euro zone’s debt crisis.
