Brussels, 31/05/2016 (Agence Europe) - The Eurozone annual inflation rate has been estimated at -0.1% for May 2016, up on April, when it stood at -0.2%, according to a flash estimate published by the statistical office of the EU (Eurostat) on Tuesday 31 May.
Looking at the main components of Eurozone inflation, services are expected to have the highest annual rate in May (1.0%, compared to 0.9% in April), followed by food, alcohol and tobacco (0.8%, unchanged from April), non-energy industrial goods (0.5%, unchanged from April) and energy (-8.1%, compared to -8.7% in April).
Inflation has been in negative territory since February, although the ECB has deployed a new arsenal of accommodative measures: reducing interest rates and ramping up the quantitative easing programme for the mass buy-back of predominantly public securities (see EUROPE 11509). This new counter-performance of the increase in prices on an annual basis redoubles the pressure on the European institution, whose governing council is to meet on Thursday 2 June. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)