Inflation in the eurozone surged past expectations yet again in October to hit a record high, fuelling expectations that the European Central Bank (ECB) will press on with big interest rate hikes despite economic growth slowing, as price pressures appear to be broadening.

Consumer price growth in the 19 countries sharing the euro accelerated to 10.7% in October from 9.9% a month earlier, data from Eurostat, showed on Monday. The reading beat expectations in a Reuters poll for 10.2% and way higher than the ECB's 2% inflation target, as inflation in Germany, Italy and France all rose more than forecast.

Eurostat also estimated that the eurozone's gross domestic product (GDP), while slowing sharply from the previous quarter, rose 0.2% quarter-over-quarter for a 2.1% year-over-year rise.

Energy prices continued to drive inflation but food and imported industrial goods all pushed prices sharply higher even as services played only a marginal role this time.

Some economists saw that continued growth as creating space for the central bank to keep taking strong inflation-fighting steps.

"Today's data increase the likelihood that the ECB will raise its key interest rates again by 75 basis points in December," Commerzbank said in a research note to clients.

The growth is important because many economists believe the ECB would not want to keep raising rates during an expected eurozone recession, heralded by the growth slow-down in the July-September compared with the 0.8% quarterly and 4.3% year-over-year growth in the April-June period.

Some did not exclude that idea, however.

"We continue to forecast a round of 50 bp rate hikes in December, followed by further 25 bp hikes at the subsequent meeting in February," said Ken Wattret, an economist at S&P Global Market Intelligence.

The ECB has raised rates a combined 200 basis points in the past three months and promised further tightening as soon as December.

French President Emmanuel Macron and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni have both expressed concerns that such tightening policies could intensify the region's downturn.

But markets have started to anticipate a slowdown in rate hikes as a recession looms and gas prices have come down from record highs.

After the October data, policymakers are likely to be concerned that underlying price growth, which filters out volatile food and fuel prices, continued to accelerate, pointing to broadening price pressures, which raises the risk that high inflation will get entrenched.

Indeed, inflation excluding unprocessed food and energy accelerated to 6.4% from 6.0%, while an even narrower measure that also filters out alcohol and tobacco rose to 5% from 4.8%.

The surging inflation and slowing growth are mainly the results of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the subsequent disruption of Russian gas deliveries to Europe. That has driven up energy prices and broader inflation, triggered rate rises and lead to a slowing of economic activity and falling confidence.

Germany, Europe's biggest economy, bucked the wider growth trend in the third quarter with a slight acceleration of quarterly growth to 0.3% from 0.1% in the second quarter, though its economy still decelerated in year-over-year terms.

Belgium, Latvia and Austria all already recorded a quarterly fall in GDP in the July-September period.

Markets priced out some rate hikes last week after ECB chief Christine Lagarde provided a somber outlook for economic growth but a string of grim price data since then turned investor sentiment around at least partially.

Klaas Knot, the hawkish head of the Dutch central bank, also helped push expectations back up after he said that a lot more policy tightening is still needed and the December hike will be a choice between 50 and 75 basis points.

The ECB's deposit rate, now at 1.5%, is seen peaking at just below 2.9% in 2023, a big jump compared with expectations of around 2.6% after the ECB's policy meeting last Thursday. But that is still below the 3.2% markets had priced in only a few weeks ago.

Part of the change is that economists now expect the bloc to be in recession through the end of the first quarter of 2023 and such a downturn is likely to be naturally deflationary, making the ECB's job easier.

Gas prices, though still high, are also well down from their late-summer peaks, raising hopes that Europe may find it easier to wean its economy off Russian gas than many had feared.

But the weak euro is adding to price pressures while wage growth is also inching up, a key worry as a wage-price spiral would make inflation even more difficult to break.

The ECB will next meet on Dec. 15, and a host of new readings on the economy plus the U.S. Federal Reserve's (Fed) own guidance on policy, may guide its decision then more than Monday's data.