The FINANCIAL — Euro area annual inflation was 0.3% in May 20152, up from 0.0% in April. In May 2014 the rate was 0.5%. European Union1 annual inflation was also 0.3% in May 2015, up from 0.0% in April. A year earlier the rate was 0.6%. These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
In May 2015, negative annual rates were observed in eight Member States. The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (-1.7%), Greece (-1.4%) and Slovenia (-0.8%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania and Malta (both 1.3%) and Latvia (1.2%). Compared with April 2015, annual inflation fell in two Member States, remained stable in three and rose in twenty-three.
The largest upward impacts to euro area annual inflation came from vegetables (+0.09 percentage points), restaurants & cafés (+0.08 pp) and tobacco (+0.07 pp), while fuels for transport (-0.34 pp), heating oil (-0.15 pp) and gas (-0.08 pp) had the biggest downward impacts.
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