ECB Macro Dashboard

A single-page snapshot of euro area macroeconomic conditions — prices, policy rates, the yield curve, and the euro itself. Each section links into a deeper page if you want detail.

About this dashboard. Built as a portfolio data-engineering project: extract from ECB SDW + Eurostat APIs, transformed in dbt (DuckDB), surfaced in Evidence, and refreshed automatically via GitHub Actions on a weekly cadence. Series start in 2014 and run through the latest released month. Source code: github.com/farahjaafar/analytics.

Latest snapshot

Why each tile shows a different month. The underlying sources publish on different schedules. Headline inflation is released by Eurostat 2–3 weeks after month-end, so it lags. The Deposit Facility Rate updates only when the ECB Governing Council changes it (so the date marks the most recent change, not "today"). The Real policy rate combines the two, so it's only as fresh as the older of the pair (inflation). 10Y–2Y spread and EUR/USD come from daily ECB market data and are typically the most current.

• Real policy rate = deposit rate − headline inflation. Above zero ⇒ ECB stance is restrictive; below zero ⇒ accommodative.
• 10Y–2Y spread is the slope of the yield curve. Negative ⇒ inverted (historically a recession signal).

The ECB story — inflation vs policy rate

Reading this chart. This is the central monetary-policy narrative in one image. From 2014 to mid-2022 the ECB held the DFR at −0.50% (the negative-rates era) while inflation hovered near or below target. Then the post-COVID and energy-price shock pushed headline inflation toward 10%, triggering the fastest hiking cycle in ECB history — DFR climbed from −0.50% to 4.00% between July 2022 and September 2023. Inflation has since converged back toward 2%, opening the door to the cutting cycle that began mid-2024.

Yield curve — 2Y, 10Y, and the spread

Reading this chart. The 2Y tracks short-term policy-rate expectations; the 10Y reflects long-term growth + inflation expectations. The spread (10Y minus 2Y) is the curve's slope — positive in normal times, negative when markets expect future rate cuts. The euro area curve was inverted in 21 of 318 months (6.6%) in this window — most of it during the 2022–24 hiking cycle.

EUR/USD over time

Reading this chart. Latest: 1.1638. All-time low: 0.8532 in Jun 2001 (the September 2022 parity moment, when 1 EUR briefly bought less than 1 USD for the first time in 20 years). All-time high: 1.577 in Jul 2008. For more FX detail across other currencies, see Currency & external.

See also

• Inflation — country comparison, components, gap vs the ECB 2% target
• Monetary policy — every rate decision with the macro snapshot at that moment
• Currency & external — EUR vs USD, GBP, JPY, CHF, PLN with rolling averages
• Pipeline Health — data freshness and row counts