A year earlier, the rate was 1.4%. European Union annual inflation was 1.7% in December 2018, down from 2.0% in November. A year earlier, the rate was 1.7%.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Greece and Portugal (both 0.6%) and Denmark (0.7%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Estonia (3.3%), Romania (3.0%) and Hungary (2.8%). Compared with November 2018, annual inflation fell in twenty-two Member States, remained stable in three and rose in three.

In December 2018, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (+0.58 percentage points, pp), followed by energy (+0.53 pp), food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.34 pp) and non-energy industrial goods (+0.12 pp).