According to the report from Eurostat, the euro area annual inflation rate was 3.0% in August 2021, up from 2.2% in July. A year earlier, the rate was -0.2%. European Union annual inflation was 3.2% in August 2021, up from 2.5% in July. A year earlier, the rate was 0.4%. On a monthly basis, the bloc’s CPI for August arrived at 0.4%, while the core CPI numbers came in at 0.3%, both meeting market expectations.

The lowest annual rates were registered in Malta (0.4%), Greece (1.2%) and Portugal (1.3%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Estonia, Lithuania and Poland (all 5.0%). Compared with July, annual inflation remained stable in one Member State and rose in twenty-six.

In August, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from energy (+1.44 percentage points, pp), followed by non-energy industrial goods (+0.65 pp) and food, alcohol & tobacco and services (both +0.43 pp).