bild

Pedestrians walk in front of sales posters displayed at a department store in Berlin, Wednesday, Jan. 7, 2015. Plunging energy costs have caused consumer prices in the eurozone to fall annually for the first time since 2009, official figures showed Wednesday, in a development that's likely to reinforce market expectations that the European Central Bank will soon provide an aggressive monetary stimulus. In its flash estimate of inflation, Eurostat, the EU's statistics agency, said consumer prices in the 18-country eurozone were 0.2 percent lower in December than the previous year. The decline was bigger than anticipated. The consensus in markets was for a 0.1 percent fall. The main reason behind the slide from the 0.3 percent inflation rate recorded in November was the plunging oil price, which has been most noticeably been passed on to consumers at the pump. (AP Photo/Markus Schreiber)