Inflation in the eurozone continues to accelerate and has risen just above the European Central Bank (ECB) target.
Consumer prices rose by two percent in May compared to the same month last year, as the Eurostat statistics office announced in Luxembourg on Thursday.
The statisticians thus confirmed an initial estimate.
In the previous month, inflation was 1.6 percent.
Energy prices rose particularly sharply again, increasing by 13.1 percent compared to the same month of the previous year.
This is mainly due to the collapse in energy prices during the first Corona wave about a year ago.
All other product categories, on the other hand, showed below-average prices.
The prices of services rose by 1.1 percent over the year.
Food and beverages as well as industrially manufactured goods were each less than one percent more expensive.
Core inflation excluding energy and food rose from 0.7 to 1.0 percent.
The first estimate was a slightly lower rate of 0.9 percent.
Core inflation is considered by many economists to be decisive for the basic price trend, since components that are prone to fluctuations are ignored in the price.
The ECB is aiming for an inflation rate of just under two percent in the medium term.
Although the value is now slightly exceeded and a further increase is expected, the central bank has already declared that it does not want to intervene in terms of monetary policy.
She regards the increase as only temporary, as it was a consequence of the price slump in the first Corona wave a year ago.
The ECB has also regarded the current bottlenecks in world trade, which make many raw materials and intermediate products more expensive, as a transitional phenomenon.