The eurozone year-on-year inflation rate stood at 8.5% in February, which implies a drop of one tenth compared to the data for January, as confirmed by the Community Statistics Office, Eurostat, while the underlying rate, which excludes the effect of energy and food , climbed to a record 5.6%.
Thus, the year-on-year inflation rate in the euro zone accumulates four consecutive months of deceleration and stood at its lowest level since May 2022, before the European Central Bank (ECB) began to raise interest rates.
In the European Union (EU) as a whole, the year-on-year inflation rate stood at 9.9% in February, one tenth below the rise in prices in January, which also represents the fourth monthly drop in the inflation reading. Among the EU countries, the lowest inflation rates were observed in Luxembourg (4.8%), Belgium (5.4%) and Spain (6%), while the highest increases were registered in Hungary (25.8%). %), Latvia (20.1%) and the Czech Republic (18.4%).
Underlying
In the month of February, the rise in energy prices in the euro area moderated to 13.7% from 18.9% in January, while the price of fresh food was 13.9%, compared to the 11.3% from last month. Likewise, services rose 4.8% year-on-year, four tenths more than in January, and non-energy industrial goods became more expensive by 6.8%, one tenth more than in the previous month.
Excluding the impact of energy from the calculation, the year-on-year inflation rate in the euro zone stood at 7.8% in February, compared with 7.3% in January. Likewise, when also leaving out the effect of the prices of fresh food, alcohol and tobacco, the core inflation rate in the euro zone rose to 5.6% from 5.3% in January, its highest level of the entire historical series.
