The Diplomat
The eurozone’s year-on-year inflation rate rose in July to 8.9 per cent, up from 8.6 per cent in June. This is the biggest rise in prices in the eurozone in its history and is more than four times the European Central Bank’s (ECB) 2 per cent price stability target, the EU statistics office Eurostat reported yesterday.
The year-on-year inflation rate across the EU in July reached a new record high of 9.8%, two tenths of a percentage point higher than the June reading. In July 2021, price increases across the EU-27 were 2.5% year-on-year.
Inflationary pressure in the euro area and the EU was lower in July than in the United Kingdom, where prices rose by 10.1%, following a rise of 9.4% in June, but higher than in the United States, where inflation moderated to 8.5%, six tenths of a percentage point lower than the 9.1% observed in June.
The rise in euro area prices intensified in the seventh month of 2022, even though the year-on-year increase in energy prices slowed to 39.6% from 42% in June, while the increase in the price of fresh food in July was 11.1%, up from 11.2% in June.
Services rose by 3.7% year-on-year in July, three tenths of a percentage point more than in the previous month, while the prices of non-energy industrial goods rose by 4.5%, compared with 4.3% in the previous month.
Excluding the impact of energy, the euro area’s year-on-year inflation rate stood at 5.4% in July, compared with 4.9% in the previous month, while excluding also the effect of fresh food, alcohol and tobacco prices, the underlying inflation rate stood at a record 4%, three tenths of a percentage point higher than in June.
