Euro, coins – illustration photo.
Brussels – The inflation rate in the European Union fell slightly again in February and fell below ten percent for the first time since last July. The pace of year-on-year price growth slowed by a tenth of a percentage point compared to January to 9.9 percent, the European statistical office Eurostat said today. Inflation also decreased in the Czech Republic, where, however, with a value of 18.4 percent, it remains the same as in January, the third highest in the entire Union.
Advertisement'; }
At the same time, Eurostat confirmed the earlier estimate of February inflation in the eurozone, which also fell by a tenth of a point from January's 8.6 percent.
Despite the gradual reduction, inflation is still significantly above the average of recent years. In February last year, it was 6.2 percent in the EU and 5.9 percent in the eurozone.
Prices rose significantly the fastest in February this year, as in previous months, in Hungary, although inflation there slightly decreased to 25.8 percent. Latvia (20.1 percent) was followed by the Czech Republic, where year-on-year price growth slowed from January's 19.1 to 18.4 percent. At the other end of the list are Luxembourg (4.8 percent), Belgium (5.4 percent) and Spain with six percent.
In comparison to January, year-on-year inflation fell in 15 member countries, rose in ten and two of them remained unchanged.
In February, the effect of rising food prices on overall inflation in the eurozone continued to increase, which was mainly driven up by energy prices last year. In the second month of this year, the prices of food, alcohol and tobacco products had the biggest impact on inflation, with a share of 3.10 percentage points. The share of energy decreased significantly, to 1.64 percentage points. Thus, services (2.02 points) and non-energy industrial goods (1.74 points) got ahead of them.
