Filenews 1 June 2022 - by Theano Theiopoulou
The punctuality remains constant in Europe and every month the inflation in goods and services is climbing higher and higher, making the lives of millions of households and businesses even more difficult. The increase in inflation began initially with the COVID pandemic and the problems that had been caused in the supply chain and then intensified due to Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the huge increase in energy products. The announcement yesterday of preliminary data for May by Eurostat showed that inflation remains resilient everywhere and that it has increased, even slightly, in Cyprus, reaching 8.8% from 8.6% in April 2022 and from 1.5% in May 2021.
Inflation in Cyprus, using the method recorded by Eurostat, remains above the Eurozone average, which is at 8.1% and is a new record high from 7.4% in April. It should be noted that, as a rule, the rate of increase of inflation in Cyprus, as calculated by Eurostat, is lower than the rate announced, for the same month, by the Statistical Service of the Republic of Cyprus, which takes into account more product categories in order to arrive at the general index of consumer prices. The national index of consumer prices will be announced by the Statistical Office tomorrow. In April 2022 it had climbed to 8.8%, up from 7.13% in March.
The continued rise in inflation also sets new standards for the European Central Bank, which is meeting next week to determine its monetary policy. Central bankers of the ECB's council have advocated a bigger increase in interest rates in July, namely by half a percentage point, if inflation continues to rise. They also prefer small increases in the fall.
The explosion of accuracy has led the government to take new measures to support vulnerable groups of the population. Finance Minister Constantinos Petrides announced last Friday a new package of measures, amounting to €103 million, which for the first time includes one-off grants to vulnerable categories of citizens.
At 20% in Estonia!
The differences in the levels of inflation among the 19 countries of the Eurozone are significant, with the Baltic states taking the lead, with double-digit percentages. In Estonia inflation climbed to 20.1% (an increase from May 2021), in Lithuania to 18.5% and in Latvia to 16.4%. Malta (5.6%) and France (5.8%) had the lowest inflation rates in May, while the Netherlands is the only country where inflation fell to 10.2%, up from 11.2% in April.
In the remaining countries inflation was: Slovakia 11.8%, Greece 10.7%, Belgium 9.9%, Luxembourg 9.1%, Cyprus 8.8%, Slovenia 8.7%, Spain 8.5%, Ireland 8.2%, Austria 8.1%, Portugal 8.1%, Italy 7.3% and Finland 7.1%.
The further increase in so-called core inflation in the Eurozone, which does not include energy, food, tobacco and alcohol prices, which rose in May to 3.8%, from 3.5% in April, is also worrying. A corresponding indicator, which does not include the prices of energy and fresh food, rose to 4.4% from 3.9%. The tone of accuracy was once again set by energy prices, which rose by 39.2% from 37.5% in April, while the prices of food, tobacco and alcohol rose 7% from 5.4%.
