One Interest Rate, Six Points of Inflation
Silver Data Lab Research Desk · Statistical analysis · Published on 09 February 2026
- Data source
- Eurostat
- Reference period
- 2025
- Last updated
- 31 August 2026
Key estimates
- Consumer prices across the EU rose 2.5% on annual average in 2025, and 2.1% in the euro area.
- The spread between the fastest and slowest Member State was 6.0 percentage points: Romania at 6.8%, Cyprus at 0.8%.
- 22 of 27 Member States recorded inflation above 2%, the rate the European Central Bank targets for the euro area.
- The five slowest were Cyprus, France, Italy, Finland and Denmark, all at or below 1.8%.
- All but one of the eight fastest were central and eastern European economies, a grouping the EU average conceals entirely.
An average nobody experienced
Consumer prices in the European Union rose 2.5% on annual average in 2025. In the euro area the same measure reads 2.1%, close enough to the European Central Bank's 2% objective to look like a policy that worked.
Both numbers are correct and neither describes a country. Behind the EU figure sit twenty-seven national rates running from 6.8% to 0.8%, a spread of six percentage points. A household in Bucharest and a household in Nicosia lived through the same year under the same institutions and faced price changes that differ by a factor of eight.
Where prices rose fastest
Romania recorded 6.8%, well ahead of Estonia at 4.8%. Croatia and Hungary follow at 4.4%, Slovakia at 4.2%, Latvia at 3.8%, Austria at 3.6% and Bulgaria at 3.5%.
The composition of that group is the finding. With the single exception of Austria, the eight fastest-inflating economies in the Union are in central and eastern Europe. This is not a random draw from twenty-seven countries, and it is invisible in any figure that reports the Union as one number.
Where prices barely moved
At the other end, Cyprus recorded 0.8% and France 0.9% — both below half the ECB objective. Italy at 1.7%, Finland and Denmark at 1.8% complete the group that ran under target.
France and Italy are the two largest economies in that group, and both share the euro. A monetary policy calibrated to a euro area average of 2.1% was, for them, tighter than their own conditions warranted; for Slovakia at 4.2%, inside the same currency, it was looser.
Why the dispersion matters more than the level
Twenty-two of twenty-seven Member States recorded inflation above 2% in 2025. Read alone, that suggests a Union still above target. Read against the euro area's own 2.1%, it says something more specific: the aggregate is close to target because the large economies are, not because the Union as a whole is.
Monetary policy operates on the aggregate. It has one instrument and, in the euro area, one rate. Convergence in inflation is therefore not a technicality but the condition under which a single policy fits the economies it governs — and a six point spread is the measure of how far that condition is from being met.
Consumer price inflation, annual average, 2025
| Country | Annual average rate of change (%) | Gap to EU averagepercentage points, derived |
|---|---|---|
| Romania | 6.8 | +4.3 |
| Estonia | 4.8 | +2.3 |
| Croatia | 4.4 | +1.9 |
| European Unionaggregate | 2.5 | — |
| Italy | 1.7 | −0.8 |
| France | 0.9 | −1.6 |
| Cyprus | 0.8 | −1.7 |
What these figures cannot tell you
- This is the annual average, not the December reading
- The rate here is the change in the annual average index against the previous annual average, which smooths within-year movements. A country whose prices spiked early and settled late can show a high annual average alongside a low year-end rate, and the two are frequently quoted interchangeably in reporting. They are not the same number.
- One basket, different consumption
- The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices is built to be comparable across countries, with national weights reflecting what households in each country actually buy. Two countries facing identical price changes for identical goods can therefore report different HICP rates simply because their spending patterns differ, particularly in the weight given to energy and food.
- Not all Member States share the euro
- The single monetary policy argument applies to the euro area, which covered twenty Member States in 2025 on Eurostat's own definition. Romania, Hungary, Poland, Czechia, Sweden, Denmark and Bulgaria set their own policy rates over this period, so their dispersion is a different question from that of the countries inside the currency.
- An average rate says nothing about the level of prices
- A country with low inflation may still have high prices, and a country with high inflation may remain cheap. This study measures the rate of change over one year, not the cost of living, for which price level indices are the correct source.
Frequently asked questions
- What was EU inflation in 2025?
- 2.5% on annual average across the European Union, and 2.1% in the euro area. Behind those aggregates the national rates ran from 6.8% in Romania to 0.8% in Cyprus.
- Which EU country had the highest inflation in 2025?
- Romania, at 6.8% on annual average, ahead of Estonia at 4.8%, and Croatia and Hungary at 4.4%. With the exception of Austria, the eight fastest-inflating Member States were all in central and eastern Europe.
- Which EU country had the lowest inflation in 2025?
- Cyprus, at 0.8%, followed by France at 0.9%, Italy at 1.7%, and Finland and Denmark at 1.8%. All five ran below the 2% rate the European Central Bank targets.
- How many EU countries were above the 2% inflation target?
- 22 of 27 in 2025. The euro area aggregate nonetheless came in at 2.1%, because the aggregate is weighted towards the largest economies and several of those — France and Italy among them — ran below target.
Methodological note
The Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices is Eurostat's comparable measure of consumer price inflation across Member States. This study uses the all-items index, COICOP CP00, expressed as the annual average rate of change for 2025 against 2024.
The euro area figure quoted, 2.1%, is Eurostat's own aggregate for the currency union in that year, published alongside the national rates rather than computed here.
The spread of 6.0 percentage points, the count of Member States above 2%, and the observation about the composition of the fastest group are derived by Silver Data Lab from the published national rates.
Source data
The underlying series can be inspected and re-downloaded from the Eurostat data browser. The filters below are the ones applied.
HICP — annual data (average index and rate of change)
prc_hicp_aind
- Filters applied:
- freq=A · coicop=CP00 · unit=RCH_A_AVG · time=2025
- Extracted:
- 2026-08-11
- Source last updated:
- 2026-02-06
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