A year earlier, the rate was -0.3%. EU annual inflation was 5.3% in December 2021, up from 5.2% in November. A year earlier, the rate was 0.3%. These figures were published by Eurostat, the EU statistical office. 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%). Compared with November, annual inflation fell in seven Member States, remained stable in two and rose in eighteen. In December, the highest contribution to the annual euro area inflation rate came from energy (+2.46 percentage points, pp), followed by services (+1.02 pp), non-energy industrial goods (+0.78 pp) and food, alcohol & tobacco (+0.71 pp).