ECB's Lane says informative that underlying inflation hasn't moved yet, and means it's the usual delayed response and underlying inflation is a guide to 1yr ahead inflation

• Energy prices already reversing, if that continues you can see headline inflation falling and underlying inflation climbing.
• People should be looking out for whether inflation is coming in stronger or weaker than projections.

Remarks of this kind from a chief economist carry more weight than routine Governing Council commentary, since the position has historically been used to frame the staff projection round and the baseline against which other officials react. The substantive point is a distinction the ECB has drawn repeatedly through energy-driven cycles: headline inflation moves first on base effects, while underlying measures lag and are treated as the better guide to medium-term inflation, which is what policy is set against. That framing has typically meant tolerance for headline declines while core measures stay sticky, and it has tended to blunt repricing of the near-term rate path until core momentum itself turns. The energy-reversal observation cuts both ways: in past episodes of this kind, falling headline alongside still-climbing underlying readings has kept the debate focused on persistence rather than the headline print. The follow-ons that have mattered in comparable sequences are the next core and services inflation prints relative to staff projections, whether wages data corroborate the delayed-response story, and whether hawks on the council adopt or resist the same language ahead of the next decision. As commentary anchoring the projection framework rather than a decision, the signal is about which prints will move the reaction function.