The annual inflation rate in the European Union rose to 2% in April from 1.7% in March, with the highest rates being registered in Hungary (5.2%) and Poland (5.1%), Luxembourg (3.3%), the Czech Republic (3.1%), Sweden (2.8%) and Romania (2.7%), show data released on Wednesday by Eurostat.

Compared to the situation in March 2021, the annual inflation rate decreased in three Member States, remained stable in one state and increased in 23 countries. Among the latter is Romania, where the annual inflation rate rose to 2.7% in April, from 2.5% in March. In comparison, in April 2020, the annual inflation rate in Romania was of 2.3%.

Eurostat data show that the annual inflation rate in the euro area rose from 1.3% in March to 1.6% in April. For euro area countries, the most significant impact on annual price increases came from energy, where there was an increase of 0.96 percentage points, followed by services, with an increase of 0.37 percentage points and food prices, alcoholic beverages and cigarettes (plus 0.16 percentage points), according to Agerpres.

After several months of negative inflation in the euro area, this indicator is gradually approaching the 2% target pursued by the European Central Bank in the medium term.

In the case of Romania, the National Institute of Statistics (INS) previously reported that the annual inflation rate in April 2021 compared to April 2020 calculated on the basis of the harmonized index of consumer prices (HICP) is of 2.7%.