Es ist nicht ganz ohne politische Brisanz: Das europäische Statistikamt Eurostat hat am Dienstag seine erste Schätzung der Inflationsrate im Euroraum für August nach unten revidiert. Die Rate lag demnach bei 5,2 Prozent, nach 5,3 Prozent im Juli. In einer ersten Schätzung war das Amt zunächst von einer bei 5,3 Prozent gleichbleibenden Inflationsrate ausgegangen.
The deviation is not particularly high. However, what is remarkable is that in the past week, the European Central Bank (ECB) has decided on the tenth consecutive interest rate hike. At that time, the ECB Council probably only had the initial estimate.
The central reason for the interest rate increase was the central bank’s own raised projections for inflation next year. However, ECB President Christine Lagarde also mentioned in the press conference after the interest rate decision that the inflation rate in the Eurozone did not decrease further in August and remained high at 5.3 percent.
Manche Länder rauf-, andere runtergesetzt
According to the final figures, Spain and Belgium recorded the lowest inflation rates in the Eurozone, both at 2.4 percent. The highest rates were observed in Slovakia at 9.6 percent and in Croatia at 8.4 percent. Germany’s rate was slightly above average at 6.4 percent.
The inflation rate for Greece has been slightly increased from 3.4 to 3.5 percent, and for Cyprus from 3.0 to 3.1 percent. It has been slightly decreased for Croatia from 8.5 to 8.4 percent, for Austria from 7.6 to 7.5 percent, and for Finland from 3.4 to 3.1 percent. However, the initial estimates were confirmed for most of the larger eurozone countries.
In August, the highest contribution to the annual inflation in the Eurozone came from „services“ with an increase of 2.41 percentage points, followed by „food, alcohol, and tobacco“ with an increase of 1.98 percentage points, and „non-energy industrial goods“ with 1.19 percentage points.
The core inflation, which refers to the increase in prices excluding volatile items such as energy and food, is also decreasing from 5.5 to 5.3 percent, which was expected by central bankers.
The inflation for industrial goods without energy, for example, turned out to be lower than originally estimated. The price increase was reduced from 4.8 to 4.7 percent. The increase in the cost of processed food, including alcohol and tobacco, also ended up slightly lower than expected, at 10.3 percent instead of 10.4 percent.
Source: faz.net