Romania recorded the highest annual inflation rate in the European Union in January 2024, of 7.3%, new data from Eurostat has found.
Estonia (5.0%) and Croatia (4.8%) also recorded high inflation rates in January, the data showed, while Poland recoded a rate of 4.5%, Slovakia saw inflation at 4.4%, and Austria had an inflation rate of 4.3% for the month.
The lowest inflation rates for the month were registered in Denmark and Italy, which both had an inflation rate of 0.9%, while Latvia, Lithuania and Finland all had an inflation rate of 1.1% for the month.
Euro area inflation
The annual inflation rate for the euro area stood at 2.8% in January, down from 8.6% a year earlier, and down from 2.9% the previous month.
In terms of the European Union as a whole, the inflation rate stood at 3.1% in January, down from 10.0% in the same month the previous year, and down from 3.4% on December.
Contribution to inflation rate
In January, the largest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate was from services (+1.73 percentage points), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+1.13 percentage points), non-energy industrial goods (+0.53 percentage points), and energy (-0.62 percentage points), the Eurostat data showed.
Annual inflation measures the price level change of consumer goods and services between the current month and the same month of the previous year, while monthly inflation measures the price level change between the current month and the previous month.
