IRELAND comfortably meets the Maastricht criteria on inflation, according to harmonised figures published for the first time by the European Commission yesterday.
They estimate that the Irish inflation rate was running at 1.9 per cent in January.
If the Maastricht calculation was conducted on the latest figures, it would set a limit of 2.66 per cent for the inflation rate of those wishing to qualify for monetary union.
The figures indicated that most EU countries were on track to meet the EMU requirement on stable consumer prices. All countries except Greece had year- on-year rates of below 3 per cent in January.
The Irish figure differs from the consumer price index published recently. This showed that prices rose by just 0.9 per cent in the 11 months to January.
The EU figures are calculated on a slightly different basis - for example, mortgage costs are left out - and a provisional calculation is made to give a 12-month figure.
Price stability is one of five criteria for joining EMU and inflation rates must not exceed the average of the lowest three rates by more than 1.5 percentage points.
