Eurozone inflation rises to 3.3% in August, driven by energy
Eurostat's preliminary estimate, published on September 1st, marks a four-tenths increase compared to July. The energy component rose from 10.3% to 14.3% year-on-year. In Italy, petrol has topped two euros per litre according to the Unione nazionale consumatori.
The Economy and Markets section had gone without an article in this morning’s edition. The data that reopens it came out today: according to Eurostat’s preliminary estimate, in August 2026 consumer prices in the euro area rose by 3.3% year-on-year, against 2.9% recorded in July. On a monthly basis, the harmonised index increased by 0.4%.
Where the increase lies
The push comes from a single item, and sharply so. Energy is estimated to have grown by 14.3% compared to August 2025: in July the same component stood at 10.3%. Four percentage points more in a month on the most volatile item in the basket are enough to explain much of the rise in the headline index.
| Indicator | August 2026 | July 2026 |
|---|---|---|
| Euro area, headline index | 3.3% | 2.9% |
| Euro area, energy | 14.3% | 10.3% |
| Spain, harmonised index | 4.5% | 3.9% |
| Germany, harmonised index | 2.9% | — |
| France, harmonised index | 2.7% | — |
The national figures reported by El País describe a monetary area moving at different speeds: among the three countries cited, the highest value is Spain’s, at 4.5%, and the lowest France’s, at 2.7%, a gap of 1.8 percentage points. For Germany and France, the release does not include a comparison with the previous month.
The Italian reflection at the pump
The energy component is not a statistical abstraction, and in Italy it can be read in the price displayed at petrol stations. According to the survey by the Unione nazionale consumatori, cited in Torresette’s press review, petrol on the road network has reached an average of 2.008 euros per litre; on motorways the average price rises to 2.085 euros.
On the public front, the cut to excise duties on diesel remains in force until September 5th: the government extended it to that date, and for the period thereafter the same press review indicates that more targeted measures will be considered, without any parameters or beneficiary groups having been made known. Still according to the press review, the renewal of the discount is among the topics of the summit between Giorgia Meloni, Matteo Salvini and Antonio Tajani. The majority summit is also covered by Il Fatto Quotidiano.
Why the figure matters now
A preliminary estimate is not a final figure: Eurostat publishes the revision in the following weeks, and the breakdown by individual items may change. But the direction of the movement is already legible, and it concerns the item over which central banks have historically had the least direct control: not services, not wages, but the cost of imported energy.
For the Italian reader, the practical link is the September 5th deadline. From that day, unless a new measure intervenes, diesel returns to the full rate, and the price at the pump adds to an energy component that, across the entire euro area, in the most recently recorded month, rose from 10.3% to 14.3% year-on-year.
What we don’t know
We do not know, from the available sources, the breakdown of the preliminary estimate among food, services and industrial goods, nor the core inflation figure for the euro area in August. The contents of the “more targeted measures” announced for after September 5th are not known: there are no amounts, recipients or adoption date. And in the material consulted there are no analyses quantitatively linking the rise in the European energy component to specific supply-side factors.
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