Italy’s deficit breached the European Union’s ceiling last year in the biggest fiscal setback for Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni’s government since she took office in 2022, Bloomberg News reported. The shortfall was 3.1% of gross domestic product, according to data published on Friday by the national statistics institute in Rome, confirming a preliminary estimate. Read more. (Subscription required.)

The European Central Bank’s next interest rate move will very likely be ​an increase, although it is still ‌too early to say when it will start hiking, ECB policymaker Francois Villeroy de Galhau said ​on Thursday, Reuters reported.

The eurozone’s jobless rate edged higher in February, coming off a record low at the start of the year, ahead of the inflation shock and uncertainty prompted by the conflict in the Middle East, the Wall Street Journal reported. Unemployment in the 21-nation currency area rose to 6.2% in February, from the all-time low of 6.1% in January, the European Union’s statistics agency Eurostat said Wednesday. Joblessness broadly held steady across the bloc, slightly up in Italy, marginally down in Spain, while unchanged in France and Germany.

Euro zone inflation soared past the European Central Bank's 2% target this month as surging oil and gas costs drove up headline prices, but ​the jump was smaller than expected and core inflation declined, muddying the picture for policymakers, Reuters reported. Overall inflation in the 21 countries sharing the euro currency jumped to 2.5% ‌in March from 1.9% a month earlier, below expectations for 2.6% in a Reuters poll of economists, as energy costs rose 4.9%.