Belgium registered the second-lowest annual inflation rate in the EU last month, with only Luxembourg claiming a lower increase in prices.
According to data published on Wednesday by Eurostat, the EU's official statistics office, Belgium recorded an inflation rate of 3.3% in April, only 0.6% higher than Luxembourg. Spain registered the bloc's third-lowest inflation rate (3.8%).
By contrast, Hungary recorded the EU's highest inflation rate (24.5%), followed by Latvia (15.0%) and Czechia (14.3%).
The figures, as measured by the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP), also show that inflation fell as a whole across the EU in April to 8.1%, down from 8.3% in March.
The data further demonstrate that Belgium's inflation rate has fallen consistently since November last year, when it peaked at 10.5%, with the EU's average inflation rate also steadily declining since then.
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Within the eurozone, the greatest inflationary pressures arose from food, alcohol & tobacco, which collectively contributed 2.75 percentage points (pp) to the headline rate. Services (2.21 pp), non-energy industrial goods (1.62 pp), and energy (0.38 pp) also had a sizeable inflationary impact.
Overall, inflation fell in all but five of the EU's 27 Member States from March to April. Notably, these five countries included two of Belgium's neighbours, namely the Netherlands (4.5% to 5.8%) and France (6.7% to 6.9%).
Eurostat's latest report follows another recent study by Statbel, Belgium's official statistics office, which found that Belgium's inflation rate fell to 5.60% in April, down from 6.67% in March. However, this inflation rate was calculated using the Consumer Price Index (CPI): a different index to the HICP, which is calculated using a distinct basket of goods and services.
