EU inflation rate stays steady at 2%

European Union annual inflation was 2.0% in February, down from 2.1% in January, it was learned here on Friday.  A year earlier the rate was 2.9%. Euro area annual inflation was 1.8% in February, down from 2.0% in January. A year earlier the rate was 2.7%. These figures were released Friday by Eurostat, the EU statistical office.  In February, the lowest annual rates were observed in Greece (0.1%), Portugal (0.2%) and Latvia (0.3%), and the highest in Romania (4.8%), Estonia (4.0%) and the Netherlands (3.2%). Compared with January , annual inflation fell in seventeen EU Member States, remained stable in three and rose in six.