Hawks, Doves, and the Scent of Inflation

A Deep Dive into the ECB

Inflation remains the European Central Bank’s defining obsession — not as a variable to be managed, but as an adversary to be hunted. Like Hannibal facing Rome, Frankfurt cannot walk away, even when the battlefield has shifted and the costs are rising.

Behind the formal language of press conferences and projections, a quieter struggle is unfolding: hawks and doves manoeuvring through data, geopolitics, and ambition, all against the backdrop of an increasingly fragile global order. With the European Central Bank approaching a leadership transition, inflation has become not just a policy question, but a lever of power.

This piece traces how December’s hawkish confidence gave way to January’s reversal, why inflation data no longer tells a clean story, and how politics, geopolitics, and personal ambition now weigh as heavily as economics in Frankfurt. It is not a forecast — it is an anatomy of a central bank fighting yesterday’s enemy in a world that no longer stands still.

Let’s dig in.