On Wednesday 17 May, Eurostat largely confirmed its estimates of 2 May (see EUROPE 13173/17): annual inflation (Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices - HICP) in the euro area rose to 7% in April, from 6.9% in March.
In the EU, on the other hand, inflation appears to be falling: the annual HICP inflation rate was 8.1% in April. It was 8.3% in March.
Core inflation seems to have peaked or plateaued in the euro area. Growth in consumer prices excluding energy, food, alcohol and tobacco slowed slightly in April: the annual rate of inflation for the aggregate is estimated to have reached 5.6%, compared with 5.7% in March.
The strongest contribution to annual inflation in the euro area in April came from the ‘food, alcohol and tobacco’ group with +2.75 pp.
Energy had the lowest contribution to this rate in April (+0.38 pp). However, the annual inflation rate in the euro area for the ‘energy’ aggregate is up (2.4%) after a noticeable fall in March (to -0.9%) following a rate of 13.7% in February.
These statistics cover disparities between Member States. The lowest annual rates in the EU were observed in Luxembourg (2.7%) and Belgium (3.3%). Hungary (at 24.5%) and Latvia (15.0%) have the highest annual inflation rates.
More information: https://aeur.eu/f/6xz (Original version in French by Émilie Vanderhulst)