Eurozone annual inflation was 0.9% in February 2010, down from 1.0% in January. A year earlier the rate was 1.2%. Monthly inflation was 0.3% in February 2010. EU27 annual inflation was 1.4% in February 2010, down from 1.7% in January. A year earlier the rate was 1.8%. Monthly inflation was 0.3% in February 2010. These figures come from Eurostat, the EU statistics office.

Inflation in the EU Member States: In February 2010, the lowest annual rates were observed in Latvia (-4.3%), Ireland (-2.4%) and Lithuania (-0.6%), and the highest in Hungary (5.6%), Romania (4.5%) and Poland (3.4%). Compared with January 2010, annual inflation fell in fifteen Member States, remained stable in five and rose in five. The lowest 12-month averages up to February 2010 were registered in Ireland (-2.2%), Portugal (-0.9%) and Estonia (-0.6%), and the highest in Romania (5.3%), Hungary (4.6%) and Poland (4.0%). Germany's annual inflation rate was 0.5%. Inflation in Greece was 2.9%.

Eurozone: The main components with the highest annual rates in February 2010 were alcohol & tobacco and transport (both 4.3%) and miscellaneous goods & services (1.8%), while the lowest annual rates were observed for food (-1.1%), communications (-0.6%) and recreation & culture (-0.3%). Concerning the detailed sub-indices, fuels for transport (+0.52 percentage points), tobacco (+0.13) and heating oil (+0.10) had the largest upward impacts on the headline rate, while gas (-0.31), milk, cheese & eggs and garments (-0.08 each) had the biggest downward impacts.

The main components with the highest monthly rates were clothing (1.7%), recreation & culture (1.1%), communications and hotels & restaurants (both 0.4%), while the lowest were health and transport (both 0.0%). In particular, package holidays (+0.08 percentage points) and garments (+0.06) had the largest upward impacts, while fuels for transport (-0.04) and heating oil (-0.02) had the biggest downward impacts.

The Eurozone (EA16) includes Belgium, Germany, Ireland, Greece, Spain, France, Italy, Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, Slovenia, Slovakia and Finland.

The EU27 includes Belgium (BE), Bulgaria (BG), the Czech Republic (CZ), Denmark (DK), Germany (DE), Estonia (EE), Ireland (IE), Greece (EL), Spain (ES), France (FR), Italy (IT), Cyprus (CY), Latvia (LV), Lithuania (LT), Luxembourg (LU), Hungary (HU), Malta (MT), the Netherlands (NL), Austria (AT), Poland (PL), Portugal (PT), Romania (RO), Slovenia (SI), Slovakia (SK), Finland (FI), Sweden (SE) and the United Kingdom (UK).