According to preliminary data from Eurostat, in May 2024, consumer prices in the eurozone increased by 2.6% year-on-year. Thus, inflation accelerated compared to April, when it was 2.4% and reached its lowest level since November last year. Analysts had expected inflation to accelerate to 2.5%. The growth in the cost of services accelerated to 4.1% compared with 3.7% in April. At the same time, the increase in prices for food, alcohol and tobacco products slowed to 2.6% from 2.8% a month earlier, and for industrial products – to 0.8% from 0.9%. Energy prices rose 0.3% after falling 0.6% in April. Core inflation excluding the cost of food and energy (CPI Core index) accelerated to 2.9% in May, compared with 2.7% in April, which was the lowest rate since February 2022. Experts predicted an acceleration in core inflation to 2.8%. On a monthly basis, consumer prices in the eurozone increased by 0.2% in May after rising by 0.6% in April. The highest inflation among the eurozone countries was recorded in Belgium (4.9% in annual terms), the lowest in Latvia (0.2%). In Germany, consumer prices rose by 2.8%, in France – by 2.7%, in Italy – by 0.8%, and in Spain – by 3.8%.
