Euro area: Sentiment improves, price pressures retrench

Research evidence excerpt

Euro area: Sentiment improves, price pressures retrench

J P M O R G A N Europe Economic Research

29 June 2026

Euro area: Sentiment improves,

price pressures retrench

The European Commission’s Economic Sentiment Indicator (ESI) rose by 1.3 Economic and Policy Research

points in June to 95.0—above our forecast (+0.6) and following a greater-than- Mariana Monteiro

previously reported improvement in May (+0.5pt, previously reported as +0.3pt). (44 20) 3493-5147

Together with last week’s PMI releases, this supports the view that the drag on mariana.reispaivamonteiro@jpmorgan.com

sentiment from Middle East war spillovers is fading, and that economic J.P. Morgan Securities plc

momentum is already beginning to recover. The signal from the two surveys are

broadly aligned, with the latest PMI pointing to growth of about 0.6%ar in June,

on ex-Ireland basis.

Sentiment improved across all sectors, with the exception of construction where

the headline survey fell further by -0.6pt. Consumers led the rise (+1.3pts),

followed by retail (+1.2pts) and services (+0.6pt). The improvement in

manufacturing was rather modest at (+0.2pt), failing to revert the prior month’s

deterioration. Sentiment was up across Germany (+1.7pts), Spain (+0.7pt) and

Italy (1.3pts), though a tick down in France (-0.2pts).

As we suspected, the improvement in consumer confidence shown in last week’s

flash release was driven by a less pessimistic assessment of personal financial

prospects, as concerns about future inflation eased more markedly in June. Our

mapping of the monthly qualitative survey into a quantitative measure (based on

the quarterly quantitative expectation) points to declines in past and future inflation

perceptions/expectations of 0.3%-pt (to 10.4%) and 0.7%-pt (to 7.3%),

respectively.