In July 2012, the lowest annual rates were observed in Sweden (0.7%), Greece (0.9%), Germany and Latvia (both 1.9%), and the highest in Hungary (5.7%), Malta (4.2%) and Estonia (4.1%). Compared with June 2012, annual inflation fell in twelve Member States, remained stable in one and rose in fourteen.
The lowest 12-month averages up to July 2012 were registered in Sweden (1.0%), Ireland (1.6%) and Greece (1.8%), and the highest in Hungary (4.9%), Estonia (4.6%) and Slovakia (4.1%).
Euro area
The main components with the highest annual rates in July 2012 were alcohol & tobacco (4.7%), housing (3.8%) and transport (3.2%), while the lowest annual rates were observed for communications (-3.1%), education (0.7%) and recreation & culture (1.0%). Concerning the detailed sub-indices, fuels for transport (+0.13 percentage points),electricity and gas (+0.10 each) had the largest upward impacts on the headline rate, while telecommunications (-0.18) and cars (-0.06) had the biggest downward impacts.
The main components with the highest monthly rates were recreation & culture (1.6%), hotels & restaurants (1.3%) and health (0.9%), while the lowest monthly rates were observed for clothing (-13.4%), communications (-0.8%) and household equipment (-0.7%) In particular, package holidays (+0.18 percentage points), accommodation services (+0.12) and air transport (+0.08) had the largest upward impacts, while garments (-0.74), footwear (-0.16) and fruit (-0.05) had the biggest downward impacts.
