The eurozone’s inflation rate jumped to a new high in February, presenting the European Central Bank with a difficult choice between supporting flagging growth and clamping down on accelerating prices driven by the threat to energy supplies following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Russia accounts for around 40% of the European Union’s imports of natural gas, a key source of energy for the bloc. It also supplies around a quarter of the bloc’s oil imports. While supplies of oil and gas have continued to flow from Russia into Europe, market prices have jumped to reflect worries about future availability.
