that s the first increase after five consecutive months of declines. consumer prices edged up from 6.9% in march, which could further encourage the european central bank to raise interest rates on thursday. joining me now is christian schulz, deputy chief european economist at citi bank. lovely to see you. so, the number is on the up, no great surprise considering what we have seen elsewhere, but the big question is how the central bank response. the ecb has made some progress, i guess, the base rate was in double digits at the end of last year, we are now down to 7%. no further progress in april, it seems. looking at the details, there are some positives. food inflation is down, it had been rising and rising. hopefully that is a trend that will continue. also called goods inflation, that is also decreasing for the first time. the bad news is, for the ecb, that services inflation keeps rising and thatis services inflation keeps rising and that is the surprise in this, really.
essentially, they worked well and they sold a lot of crude and they sold a lot of gas. and that played well in the numbers and it s a phenomenal cash flow of 7.6 billion. but mind you, there is huge demand for that cash flow because they are giving 1.75 billion in terms of shared buy backs. you have about six cents per share earnings per share and you have also big taxes, so yes, its great results, but there is huge demand on the cash that they have generated. it s a big day for big tech across europe, but not in the way it might want. from today, the eu s digital markets act comes into force. the major piece of legislation is designed to rein in the dominance of big tech companies,