21/01/2022 (Agence Europe) – The euro area annual inflation rate was 5.0% in December 2021, up from 4.9% in November, the Statistical Office of the European Union (Eurostat) confirmed on Thursday 20 January. In the EU it was 5.3%, compared with 5.2% in November. The lowest annual rates were registered in Malta (2.6%), Portugal (2.8%) and Finland (3.2%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Estonia (12.0%), Lithuania (10.7%) and Poland (8.0%). Price inflation was 3.4% in France, 4.2% in Italy, 5.7% in Germany and 6.6% in Spain. Compared with November, annual inflation fell in seven Member States, remained stable in two, and rose in eighteen. The largest contributions to inflation came from energy (+2.46 percentage points, or pp), followed by services (+1.02 pp). (MB)