Experts believe that residents of the European Union will have to live with increased prices throughout 2022, as inflation accelerates amid a jump in energy prices. However, many are sure that this is temporary, and the situation with prices should calm down. In its winter economic forecast, the European Commission sharply raised the estimate of inflation in the European Union for 2022 against the background of high energy prices – from 2.5% to 3.9%. At the same time, the EC expects the high cost of energy carriers to remain during the first part of the year, despite the absence of a shortage of gas and oil, and recognizes that expensive energy will remain the main engine of consumer price dynamics in 2022. «There is no shortage of gas and oil in the world right now, and the current tension is partly due to political factors in Central Europe,» representatives of the European Commission note. The EC also expects that wholesale gas prices on spot markets in the EU may stabilize from the second quarter. At the same time, prices in 2022 may be higher than expected in the fall, and they may decrease in the spring of 2023.
