According to te most recent figures from Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, the Euro area annual inflation up to 3.7% in May 2008.  Euro area annual inflation was 3.7% in May 2008, up from 3.3% in April. A year earlier the rate was 1.9%. Monthly inflation was 0.6% in May 2008. EU annual inflation was 3.9% in May 2008, up from 3.6% in April. A year earlier the rate was 2.1%. Monthly inflation was 0.6% in May 2008.

Inflation in the EU Member States

In May 2008, the lowest annual rates were observed in the Netherlands (2.1%), Portugal (2.8%) and Germany (3.1%), and the highest in Latvia (17.7%), Bulgaria (14.0%) and Lithuania (12.3%). Compared with April 2008, annual inflation rose in twenty-one Member States, remained stable in three and fell in two.

The lowest 12-month averages up to May 2008 were registered in the Netherlands (1.7%), Denmark and Malta (both 2.3%), and the highest in Latvia (13.8%), Bulgaria (10.9%) and Estonia (9.3%).

The main components with the highest annual rates in May 2008 were:

• Food (6.4%), transport (5.9%) and housing (5.7%).
• The lowest annual rates were observed for communications (-1.7%), recreation & culture (0.1%) and clothing (0.7%).

Concerning the detailed sub-indices:

• Fuels for transport (+0.55 percentage points), heating oil (+0.35) and milk, cheese & eggs (+0.21) had the largest upward impacts on the headline rate
• The biggest downward impacts were made by Cars (-0.18), telecommunications and garments (-0.17 each).

The main components with the highest monthly rates were:

• Transport (1.8%), housing (0.8%) and recreation & culture (0.7%).
• The lowest were communications (-0.2%), health (0.0%) and clothing (0.1%).
• The largest upward impacts were made by fuels for transport (+0.23 percentage points), heating oil (+0.09) and package holidays (+0.06).
• Cars, milk, cheese & eggs, garments, rents and telecommunications (-0.03 each) had the biggest downward impacts.