According to the report from Eurostat, the euro area annual inflation rate was 0.8% in September 2019, down from 1.0% in August. Economists had expected a 0.9% increase. A year earlier the rate was 2.1%. European Union annual inflation was 1.2% in September 2019, down from 1.4% in August. A year earlier, the rate was 2.2%. 

The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (-0.5%), Portugal (-0.3%), Greece, Spain and Italy (all 0.2%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (3.5%), Slovakia (3.0%) and Hungary (2.9%). Compared with August, annual inflation fell in twenty Member States, remained stable in five and rose in two.

In September, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (+0.66 percentage points, pp), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.29 pp), non-energy industrial goods (+0.06 pp) and energy (-0.18 pp).