Europe Nears Inflation Target While Fretting Over Tariffs

Welcome to the Brussels Edition, Bloomberg’s daily briefing on what matters most in the heart of the European Union.

The ECB has almost reached its goal of bringing inflation down to 2%, with April’s reading — due today — expected to come in only slightly above that target. This comes after unexpectedly strong GDP numbers on Wednesday, which showed the euro area expanding 0.4% in the first quarter. There’s a big asterisk over all this good news however: President Donald Trump’s tariffs, which have yet to fully go into effect. The EU, which is still hoping to mitigate the duties, is planning to share a paper with the US next week that will set out a package of proposals to kick-start trade talks. The paper will suggest lowering trade and non-tariff barriers, boosting European investments in the US, cooperating on strategic challenges and purchasing more US LNG, we’re told. But EU officials are also continuing to prepare retaliatory steps.