Europe is showing clear signs of stagflation. The latest evidence is the figures from Norway, where the CPI inflation index stood at 4.5% year-on-year in March, while economic output shrank by 0.2% month-on-month in March. Here, it is above all the disastrous figures from the construction and industrial sectors that reinforce the impression that Europe is still on a recessionary path, while inflation remains stubbornly high. Yesterday's rise in the inflation rate in the United States is likely to have triggered downright panic at the ECB Tower in Frankfurt. Nowhere are people waiting so desperately for interest rate cuts and credit easing as in the capitals of the eurozone and in Europe's banks.