Eurozone inflation failed to pick up in November - ahead of Mario Draghi's QE boost

Eurozone inflation stayed still in November, with price growth holding at 0.1% year-on-year. That's a long way from the European Central Bank's 2% target.

Analysts were expecting CPI to have risen by 0.2% year-on-year, up from 0.1% in October.

Core consumer prices rose by 0.9%, less than last month's figure and less than was forecast.

Core prices are an important measure because they strip out the most volatile items - things like fuel and food prices which are subject to massive variations.

A large part of the eurozone's extremely low inflation right now is down to the slump in the price of oil over the last year - but the core figure shows that other prices aren't rising by as much as the ECB would like, either.

Analysts had expected core prices to rise by 1%, down from 1.1% in October.

ECB chief Mario Draghi is gearing up to announce more easing measures after Thursday's policy meeting. That seems likely to mean a bigger quantitative easing (QE) programme, and possibly more interest rate cuts - which would push the eurozone deposit rate even further into negative territory.