Which parts of the Eurozone are being hardest hit by record inflation?

Inflation in the eurozone is expected to have reached a record high of 7.5% in April, but not all countries using the single currency are being hit the same. 

That’s according to preliminary figures from Eurostat and would represent a very small uptick from the previous month’s 7.4% reading. 

Estonia is projected to have the highest inflation among the 19 countries using the euro, with prices seen 19% higher than in April 2021. This is up from March when the Estonian annual inflation reached 14.8%.

Estonia’s fellow Baltic counties — Lithuania and Latvia — follow suit with two digits readings. That’s largely because the three small states are heavily reliant on foreign imports to meet their energy needs making them particularly vulnerable to global price volatility. 

Energy is expected to have the highest annual inflation rate in April at 38.0% — compared with 44.4% in March — followed by food, alcohol & tobacco for which inflation is seen at 6.4% when it was at 5% in March. Inflation rates for non-industrial foods as well as services are meanwhile projected to be higher in April than they were in March. 

The countries with the lowest inflation are forecast to be Finland (5.6%), France (5.4%), and Malta (4.9%).

In the case of Finland and France, it is attributed to a more diversified energy mix, while Malta, which relies on foreign-imported gas, has an ongoing multi-year supply deal with Azerbaijan which has helped keep prices stable.

The euro area and the wider European Union are far from the only regions experiencing sharp price hikes with record inflation also observed over the previous few months in the UK and US.