Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, said, the euro area annual inflation rate was 1.5% in February 2019, up from 1.4% in January 2019. A year earlier, the rate was 1.1%. European Union annual inflation was 1.6% in February 2019, up from 1.5% in January 2019. A year earlier, the rate was 1.4%.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Ireland (0.7%), Greece, Croatia and Cyprus (all 0.8%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (4.0%), Hungary (3.2%) and Latvia (2.8%).

Compared with January 2019, annual inflation fell in seven Member States, remained stable in one and rose in nineteen.

In February 2019, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (+0.61 percentage points, pp), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.44 pp), energy (+0.35 pp) and non-energy industrial goods (+0.09 pp).