While Euro area annual inflation was 1.4% in December 2017, down from 1.5% in November, the annual inflation registered in Malta decreased to 1.3%. In December 2016, the Euro area rate was 1.1%.
European Union annual inflation was 1.7% in December 2017, down from 1.8% in November. A year earlier the rate was 1.2%.
These figures come from Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union.
The lowest annual rates were registered in Cyprus (-0.4%), Ireland and Finland (both 0.5%) and Denmark (0.8%). The highest annual rates were recorded in Lithuania and Estonia (both 3.8%) and the United Kingdom (3.0%).
Compared with November 2017, annual inflation fell in twenty-three Member States, remained stable in four and rose in one.
The largest upward impacts to the euro area annual inflation came from fuels for transport (+0.11 percentage points), tobacco (+0.06 pp) and milk, cheese & eggs (+0.05 pp), while telecommunication (-0.10 pp), garments and vegetables (-0.05 pp each) had the biggest downward impacts.