Euro area annual inflation rate was 1.2% in April 2018, down from 1.3% in March. A year earlier, the rate was 1.9%. European Union annual inflation was 1.4% in April 2018, down from 1.5% in March. A year earlier, the rate was 2.0%.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (-0.3%), Ireland (-0.1%) and Portugal (0.3%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (4.3%), Slovakia (3.0%) and Estonia (2.9%). Compared with March 2018, annual inflation fell in twelve Member States, remained stable in one and rose in fourteen. In April 2018, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.47 percentage points), followed by services (+0.45 pp), energy (+0.25 pp) and non-energy industrial goods (+0.07 pp).