Euro zone inflation has delivered some “upside surprises” recently, raising some questions about the European Central Bank’s expectations for a dip early next year, the ECB’s chief economist Philip Lane said on Wednesday.

Inflation in the 20 nations sharing the euro has been hovering around the ECB’s 2 per cent target for most of this year, but some measures of price growth came in higher than expected in the last couple of months.

Lane said there was still a risk that inflation – which rose sharply in 2021-22 before falling back to the ECB’s 2 per cent goal – might surpass the central bank’s expectations.

“The inflation risk is not one way, we’ve seen some upside surprises recently,” Lane told an event.

The ECB’s September projections put inflation at 2.1 per cent this year, 1.7 per cent in 2026 and 1.9 per cent in 2027.

Lane is due to present new forecasts, which will cover 2028 for the first time, at the ECB’s next meeting on December 18, when the central bank is expected to keep its policy rate at 2 per cent.

“We did have a clear projection, because of low energy, of inflation falling below target, especially in the opening months of next year,” Lane said. “But in fact some of the data since then have moved in the opposite direction, so those are some of the mitigants.”

Headline inflation edged up to 2.2 per cent last month, slightly above expectations, as prices in the services sector accelerated.

In October, underlying inflation, which strips out more volatile prices such as food and energy, had also come in slightly higher than expected.

Delivering a speech earlier, Lane repeated his mantra that the ECB should not “respond to near-term deviations that are solidly expected to be transitory”.