(Bloomberg) -- A probable pickup in euro-zone inflation this month is unlikely to derail the juggernaut of an imminent interest-rate cut by the European Central Bank.

Data next Friday will show consumer prices rose 2.5% from a year earlier, up from 2.4% in April, according to the median forecast of 34 economists in a Bloomberg survey. 

The so-called core measure that policymakers tend to focus on — because it strips out volatile elements such as energy — probably stopped weakening for the first time since July, staying at 2.7%. 

While both outcomes would signify a lack of progress in the right direction toward the ECB’s 2% target, officials’ consistent signals for a quarter-point rate reduction on June 6 make it unlikely that one month of data will distract them.

President Christine Lagarde, for example, declared this week that “we have inflation under control.” ECB Vice President Luis de Guindos meanwhile said that fluctuations in consumer-price growth are expected, and that a 25 basis-point cut in borrowing costs “looks reasonable.”

Even so, if inflation turns out as forecasters anticipate, such a result might underscore the need for vigilance. That’s an approach backed by Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel, one of the hawks of the ECB Governing Council, who favors taking a breather after any move in borrowing costs.

“If there’s a rate cut in June, we have to wait, and I believe we have to wait till maybe September,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg Television on Friday at a meeting of Group of Seven counterparts in Stresa, Italy.

Some of his peers in that club are seen to be more hesitant about kicking off monetary easing.

In the UK, faster-than-expected price growth this week prompted investors to shift bets on a rate cut back to August from June — a timetable now reinforced by the surprise announcement of a July 4 election.

Lingering US inflation pressures meanwhile have left the Federal Reserve on a higher-for-longer path for borrowing costs. 

In the euro zone itself, unexpected wage strength might give ECB cause to move only slowly on prospective easing. A key gauge of euro-area pay released this week failed to weaken at the start of 2024.

Negotiated wages increased 4.7% from a year ago in the first quarter, up from 4.5% in the final three months of 2023, the central bank said this week. 

In tune with the wider euro-zone data, national numbers are also expected by forecasters to have gone the wrong way this month in three of the region’s four biggest economies.

Inflation is anticipated to have accelerated in Germany, France and Spain, and slowed in Italy. Even so, Nagel insisted that the overall trajectory for consumer prices is likely to be downward.

“So the probability is increasing that in 13 days we will see the first rate cut in the euro zone,” he said.

--With assistance from Oliver Crook.

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