Firms · SAFE
Expected change over the next 12 months
Survey-weighted average across euro-area firms. Input costs exclude labour and include energy.
The euro area at a glance
€conomy
Forecasts and market expectations
Where is the euro area headed?
Compare annual euro area forecasts from professional forecasters, ECB staff and the European Commission, then inspect market-implied ECB policy rates. Each source and publication vintage is identified.
3 sources3 measures · annual calendar-year targets
Annual outlook
Percentage values · source dates shown below
Expected ECB interest rates
Market-implied outcomes for the ECB deposit facility rate at upcoming monetary policy meetings. These are probabilities published by ECB Watch from interest-rate futures, not ECB projections or a survey of economists. The current source instruments appear below the figure.
The expected rate is the probability weighted mean of the displayed scenarios. The most likely rate is the single highest-probability outcome; it can differ from the mean. Probabilities for later meetings describe the rate level by that date, not the chance of a rate change at that individual meeting. Check the ECB meeting calendar and latest policy decision for official dates and the current rate.
Taylor-rule simulator
Illustrative policy scenario · all rates in percent
Explore how a simple policy rule responds to inflation and unemployment. The ECB’s medium-term inflation target is 2%. The natural-unemployment default is the Commission’s 2026 NAWRU estimate; it remains editable. The neutral real rate and response weights are scenario assumptions, not ECB estimates or forecasts.
Rule-implied nominal short rate
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Neutral real rate + inflation—
Inflation-gap response—
Unemployment-gap response—
Rule: i = r* + π + φπ(π − π*) + φu(u* − u). Inflation gap is calculated from the two inflation boxes. A positive unemployment gap (natural minus current) raises the implied rate. The 6.5% natural-unemployment default is the Commission’s Spring 2026 AMECO NAWRU for EA21 in 2026, a revisable model estimate rather than an observed natural rate. The 1% neutral real rate and default 0.25 unemployment-gap weight are illustrative assumptions, not estimated ECB responses. The Taylor 1993 unemployment-form preset instead uses a 1.0 unemployment-gap weight, equivalent to Taylor’s 0.5 output-gap weight under an assumed Okun coefficient of 2, and a 2% neutral real rate. This contemporaneous rule is not an ECB policy recommendation or forecast. Federal Reserve rule derivation.
Firms and households: one-year expectations
ECB surveys · published vintages
Households · Consumer Expectations Survey
Expected change or rate in 12 months
Inflation is the median expectation; income growth and future unemployment are survey averages.
The expected unemployment rate reflects households’ perceptions and is not directly comparable with Eurostat’s measured unemployment rate.
Upcoming Eurostat releases
The dates below are a saved snapshot of Eurostat’s euro indicator calendar. Check the live Eurostat calendar before relying on a date. A release-matched forecast is shown only when a documented public source predicts that exact release and definition.
| Release | Reference period | Scheduled time | Release-matched forecast |
|---|
Forecast vintages
Different information sets and forecast methods
How to read this page
Comparable target, different vintage. GDP growth and HICP inflation are calendar-year average changes from the prior year. Unemployment is the annual average rate as a percentage of the labour force. These are euro area aggregates. Source definitions and euro area composition can differ slightly across providers.
Survey versus institution. The ECB survey figures are mean point forecasts from professional respondents, not ECB staff views. ECB staff and Commission figures are their own published projections. A missing value means that vintage did not publish that year.
Annual versus release-specific. An annual projection is not a forecast for the next monthly or quarterly first print. We therefore do not use these annual numbers as release expectations or calculate “surprises” against them.
Market rates. The ECB rate figure summarizes ECB Watch’s published probability distribution: the line is its weighted mean, dots show the most likely rate, and vertical bars show the central 80% of outcomes. Futures prices include risk and liquidity premia, so the implied path is not a pure survey expectation or an ECB commitment. Its source date is shown separately from this page’s snapshot date.
Firm and household surveys. SAFE reports firms’ expected own selling-price, wage, input-cost and employment changes. CES reports households’ expected inflation, nominal income growth and perceived future unemployment. These answer different questions and are not interchangeable with professional GDP or HICP forecasts.
Bank forecasts. A combined bank view requires a curated, source-linked panel with the same target definition and horizon for each variable. Calendar-year euro-area GDP/HICP, year-end ECB deposit rate, year-end EURO STOXX 50 level and year-end USD per EUR would be kept in separate columns. A cross-bank median would be shown only when at least two current, public forecasts match one exact target; missing bank/market pairs would stay blank.
The live source links in each card expose the official publications. The snapshot date above shows when the source tables and release schedule were retrieved.