Brussels (EFE).- The year-on-year inflation rate fell six tenths in June in the euro area, to 5.5%, and fell seven tenths in the European Union as a whole, to 6.4%, in both cases its lowest level since the start of the war in Ukraine in February last year, according to revised data published by Eurostat on Wednesday.
The rate thus chains eight months of declines from the highs reached last October in both areas, of 10.6% in the euro area and 11.5% in the Twenty-seven, and stands below 5.9% and of 6.2% registered, respectively, at the end of February 2022.
However, the underlying inflation rate in the euro area, which excludes the effect of energy, food, alcohol and tobacco as they are the most volatile and serves as a reference for the European Central Bank (ECB) when setting its monetary policy, it rose two tenths in June, up to 5.5%.
The increase in subjacent inflation, one tenth higher than anticipated by Eurostat in its preliminary estimate, gives Frankfurt arguments to continue raising interest rates, which in eleven months have gone from zero to 4% in order to contain an increase in prices that unequally affect community members.
Spain registered the second lowest inflation rate in the EU in June
Spain registered the second lowest inflation rate in the EU in June after reducing it by 1.3 percentage points, to 1.6%, the same level noted in Belgium and only above Luxembourg (1.0%).
Except in Germany, where the rate rose five tenths to 6.8%, the price increase moderated in all the major economic powers of the EU: in France it fell seven tenths, to 5.3%, in Italy it fell 1.3 percentage points, to 6.7%; and in the Netherlands it fell three tenths, to 6.4%.
By contrast, the highest levels of inflation were recorded in Hungary (19.9%), Slovakia (11.3%) and the Czech Republic (11.2%), according to the Harmonized Index of Consumer Prices published by the community statistics office.
In June, the main factor behind the increase in prices in the euro area were food, alcohol and tobacco, which contributed 2.35 percentage points to the rate despite moderating their inflation in June to 11.6%, nine tenths less that in may
The prices of services contributed to a similar magnitude (2.31 points), which increased four tenths year-on-year, up to 5.4%, and to a lesser extent the prices of non-industrial energy goods (1.42 points). , whose inflation rate dropped three tenths with respect to the previous month, up to 5.5%.
Energy prices accelerate decline in June
Energy prices, on the other hand, accelerated their fall in June to 5.6%, compared to the 1.8% drop they had already recorded in May, thereby contributing slightly to mitigating the rate of inflation in the eurozone subtracting 0.57 percentage points.
In this context, both the European Commission and the ECB insist on asking the governments of the euro area to complement the efforts in Frankfurt with their fiscal policy to contain the still high inflation and thus avoid an even more aggressive increase in rates.
Last week, the ministers of Economy and Finance of the euro area (Eurogroup) reiterated their commitment to act along these lines, in particular by withdrawing public support measures for the energy crisis caused by the war in Ukraine and by adopting restrictive budgetary policies after almost four years of expansion of public spending, first due to the pandemic and then due to the conflict.