First ECB rate increases in over a decade to kick off in July Photographer: Andrey Rudakov/Bloomberg Euro-area inflation surged to a fresh record, surpassing expectations and bolstering calls for the kind of aggressive interest-rate increases being deployed by central banks across the world. Driven once more by soaring food and energy costs, consumer prices jumped 8.6% from a year earlier in June — up from 8.1% in May. Economists surveyed by Bloomberg saw a gain of 8.5%. The median estimate in the poll has fallen short for 11 of the last 12 months. The data reflect an escalating squeeze on households and firms across the 19-member currency bloc, where France, Italy and Spain reported new all-time highs this week. Germany, the continent’s No. 1 economy, only saw a slowdown thanks to fuel-tax cuts and public-transport discounts that are temporary. In the Baltic region, price growth has shot past 20%. […]