Eurostat: high inflation in the EU. Poland among the worst-hit states

According to the figures published by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, the euro area annual inflation rate was 8.1% in May 2022, up from 7.4% in April. A year earlier, the rate was 2.0%.

European Union annual inflation was 8.8% in May 2022, up from 8.1% in April. A year earlier, the rate was 2.3%, the Eurostat said announced on Friday.

"The lowest annual rates were registered in France, Malta (both 5.8%) and Finland (7.1%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Estonia (20.1%), Lithuania (18.5%) and Latvia (16.8%). Compared with April, annual inflation fell in one Member State and rose in twenty-six," we read in the report published at Eurostat website.

"In May, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from energy (+3.87 percentage points, pp), followed by food, alcohol & tobacco (+1.59 pp), services (+1.46 pp) and non-energy industrial goods (+1.13 pp)," Eurostat added.

Poland's official statistical agency Statistics Poland announced in June that the country's CPI (Consumer Prices Index) in May increased by 13.9% year on year, and by 1.7% compared to April 2022.

According to Eurostat, Poland's Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) increased by 12.8% year on year, which was the sixth-highest spike in prices in the European Union. The highest inflation was reported in Estonia (20.1% yoy), Lithuania (18.5% yoy), and Latvia (16.8% yoy).

The lowest increase in consumer prices in May was recorded in France (5.8% yoy), Malta (5.8% yoy), and Finland (7.1% yoy).

The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices, abbreviated as 'HICP', is a consumer price index that is produced by each European Union Member State using a harmonised methodology. These indices are directly comparable between countries and can be aggregated. The aim is to provide a high-quality and comparable measure of consumer price inflation.

The HICP serves two main purposes:

It is used as an indicator for assessing price convergence with regard to a possible accession of a country to the monetary union (euro currency);

It is a measure of price stability for the European Central Bank's (ECB) monetary policy strategy. The Governing Council of the ECB has defined price stability in terms of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area.

In addition, like any other consumer price index the HICP is used for economic analyses and indexing contracts.

HICP data are published by Eurostat, while national CPIs are published by National Statistical Institutes.