Annual inflation in the euro area was 1.4 percent in May this year, up from 1.2 percent in April, according to a report released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities. In May 2012, the annual inflation rate was 2.4 percent. Meanwhile, monthly inflation was 0.1 percent in May of the current year.
Meanwhile, in the European Union (EU-27) annual inflation was 1.6 percent in May, up from the 1.4 percent recorded in April. In the same month of the previous year, the annual inflation rate in the EU-27 was 2.6 percent, while monthly inflation was 0.1 percent in May this year.
In May, annual inflation in the EU-27 fell in four states, rose in sixteen and remained stable in six, as compared with April of the current year. In May, the lowest annual inflation rates were observed in Greece (-0.3%), Latvia (-0.2%) and Cyprus (0.2%), and the highest in Romania (4.4%), Estonia (3.6%) and the Netherlands (3.1%). The lowest 12-month averages up to the end of May this year were registered in Greece (0.3%), Sweden (0.7%) and Latvia (1.1%), and the highest in Hungary and Romania (both with 4.3%) and Estonia (3.9%).