EU annual inflation 0.8 per cent in February 2014 – Eurostat
European Union annual inflation was 0.8 per cent in February 2014, down from 0.9 per cent in January, EU statistics office Eurostat said on March 17.
A year earlier the rate was two per cent. Monthly inflation in the EU was 0.3 per cent in February 2014.
Euro area annual inflation was 0.7 per cent in February 2014, down from 0.8 per cent in January. A year earlier the rate was 1.8 per cent. Monthly inflation was 0.3 per cent in February 2014.
In February 2014, negative annual rates were observed in Bulgaria (-2.1 per cent), Cyprus (-1.3 per cent) and Greece (-0.9 per cent), Croatia (-0.2 per cent), Portugal and Slovakia (both -0.1 per cent). The highest annual rates were recorded in Malta and the United Kingdom (1.6c per cent), Finland and Malta (1.6 per cent each).
Compared with January 2014, annual inflation fell in 17 EU countries, remained stable in three and rose in seven.
The lowest 12 month average rates up to February 2014 were registered in Greece (-1.1 per cent), Bulgaria (-0.3 per cent) and Cyprus (-0.2 per cent), and the highest in Estonia (2.8 per cent), Romania (2.6 per cent) and the United Kingdom (2.4 per cent).
The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from tobacco (+0.08 percentage points), restaurants and cafes, and electricity (+0.06 each), while fuels for transport (-0.30), telecommunications (-0.10) and heating oil (-0.07) had the biggest downward impacts, Eurostat said.