European Union annual inflation was 1.4% in July 2019, down from 1.6% in June. A year earlier, the rate was 2.2%. These figures are published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union. The lowest annual rates were registered in Portugal (-0.7%), Cyprus (0.1%) and Italy (0.3%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Romania (4.1%), Hungary (3.3%), Latvia and Slovakia (both 3.0%). Compared with June, annual inflation fell in fifteen Member States, remained stable in two and rose in eleven. In July, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from services (+0.53 percentage points, pp), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.37 pp), non-energy industrial goods (+0.08 pp) and energy (+0.05 pp).

Data for Bulgaria indicate the opposite trend – last month inflation accelerated to 2.6 percent from 2.3 percent in June.