ECB’s Schnabel still sees tough ‘last mile’ in inflation fight

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank still faces a tough “last mile” in its fight against high inflation, as evidenced by stubbornly high growth in the prices of services, ECB board member Isabel Schnabel said in an interview published on Friday.

“We continue to expect inflation to gradually converge to our 2% target over the course of next year,” Schnabel told German daily Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. “However, persistent services inflation shows that the ‘last mile’ of the fight against inflation is particularly difficult.”

(Reporting By Tom Sims; Writing by Francesco Canepa, Editing by William Maclean)