Euro area annual inflation was 0.2% in July 2016, up from 0.1% in June. In July 2015 the rate was 0.2%. European Union annual inflation was also 0.2% in July 2016, up from 0.1% in June. A year earlier the rate was 0.2%. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.

In July 2016, negative annual rates were observed in twelve Member States. The lowest annual rates were registered in Bulgaria and Croatia (both -1.1%) and Slovakia (-0.9%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Belgium (2.0%), Sweden (1.1%) and Malta (0.9%). Compared with June 2016, annual inflation fell in nine Member States, remained stable in seven and rose in twelve.

The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from restaurants & cafés (+0.11 percentage points), vegetables (+0.09 pp) and fruit (+0.08 pp), while fuels for transport (-0.46 pp), heating oil (-0.15 pp) and gas (-0.12 pp) had the biggest downward impacts