(Bloomberg) -- Europe is at greater risk than the United States from surging oil prices making it harder to escape low growth and high inflation, the OECD’s chief economist Clare Lombardelli said.

The past shock of price jumps has already played out very differently in the two economic regions as Europe is a large energy importer, while US demand hasn’t been hurt much, Lombardelli told reporters in Paris on Tuesday. 

That divergence is reflected in the OECD’s updated forecasts released earlier, which saw upward revisions to US growth forecasts and cuts to the euro area’s, she said.

The 25% rise in oil prices since May is also already feeding through to consumer prices in some countries in a way that is “obviously unwelcome,” Lombardelli said. Oil reached a 10-month high Tuesday as supply cuts from OPEC+ tightened the market.

“The impact obviously will be, as we have learned, a squeezing on household budgets and on demand,” she said. “It depends very much on the extent to which countries are exposed to the oil price and that depends on their relative position as an importer or an exporter.”

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