Prices in the EU’s fourth-largest economy increased for the fifth consecutive month in February, compared to the previous year.
Prices in Spain increased by 3% in February compared with the same time last year, the highest rise since last June, according to the first estimate by the Spanish statistics agency NSI.
If confirmed, this indicates that the annual inflation rate is 0.1% up on the 2.9% in January. The EU-harmonised inflation for the month of February was 2.9%, slightly above estimates.
Life in Spain has become more expensive mainly due to a rise in electricity prices, reversing last year’s February decline.
On the other hand, fuels and oils for personal vehicles showed slower price increase compared with last year’s, thus slightly offsetting the high electricity prices’ effect in energy inflation in February.
Meanwhile, core inflation, the index excluding food and energy prices, slowed to 2.1%, the lowest since December 2021, and down from last month’s 2.4%.
On a monthly basis, prices were up by 0.4%, slightly above market estimates and following January’s 0.2% rise. This is in line with the EU-harmonised monthly data.
Spain’s inflation figure is slightly higher than the eurozone average, which was 2.5% in January 2025, up from 2.4% in December 2024.
However, the trend is similar; the January reading was the fourth consecutive number that showed climbing prices. Even though the President of the European Central Bank Christine Lagarde recently said that “most measures suggest that inflation is converging towards our target on a sustained basis”, there are increasing fears that the ECB may not be able to cut rates for much longer in order to boost the European economy if the core inflation rises above the bank’s 2% target.
