French growth and inflation will moderate in 2022 after a faster than expected recovery this year, after which a tighter labour market will boost wages, the French central bank forecast on Sunday, Reuters reported. The euro zone's second-biggest economy is set to grow 6.7% this year, the Bank of France said in its latest long term outlook, raising its forecast up from 6.3% previously. The post-pandemic economy's momentum would wane next year, with growth slowing to 3.6% and easing back further to 2.2% in 2023 and 1.4% in 2024, the central bank said.

Britain's health minister on Sunday declined to rule out the chance of further COVID-19 restrictions before Christmas, saying the spread of the Omicron variant was a very fast moving situation, Reuters reported. Britain has reported a surge in Omicron cases, which government advisers said could be just the tip of the iceberg. On Saturday, London's mayor declared a "major incident" to help the city's hospitals cope.

The European Central Bank announced on Thursday that it would end its pandemic-era bond-buying program in March, but would try to ease the transition by pledging additional support for the eurozone economy in the coming year, the New York Times reported. The bank left its interest rate untouched, and Christine Lagarde, the bank’s president, said that it was “very unlikely” it would move higher in the coming year despite rising inflation, which the bank sees as largely driven by high energy prices. Two other major central banks have taken a different approach.

Germany’s federal government plans to sell the second-highest amount of debt on record next year, as aggressive spending to offset the impact of the coronavirus pandemic continues, Bloomberg News reported. Debt issuance will shrink to about 410 billion euros ($464 billion) in 2022, compared with a record of around 480 billion euros this year, according to the German finance agency’s issuance plan published Thursday. The borrowing includes inflation-linked bonds worth as much as 8 billion euros, and Green bonds of 12.5 billion euros, a similar volume to this year, the agency said by email.

Inflation in Britain rose 5.1 percent last month, the highest annual rate in more than a decade, driven mainly by jumps in the cost of gasoline and clothing, the New York Times reported. The figure is a significant increase from October’s 4.2 percent rate, and shows that prices are rising faster than the Bank of England’s most recent forecast, which predicted inflation would rise to about 5 percent next spring. The central bank tries to keep inflation at about 2 percent.

With winter just beginning, European natural gas prices have once again reached record highs, as worries grow over potential supply disruptions because of tensions over Ukraine or from cold weather, the New York Times reported. “We are literally at the mercy of the weather for the next month or two,” said Henning Gloystein, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a political risk firm. On Europe’s main trading hub for natural gas, the TTF in the Netherlands, futures are trading at their highest levels in more than a decade and are roughly eight times their value of a year ago.

Bulgaria's lawmakers voted on Wednesday to shield households from surging energy costs by freezing their electricity and heating prices at current levels in the European Union's poorest state, a move slammed by power distribution companies, Reuters reported. In the past, rising prices have sparked protests in the Balkan country, where poor households often struggle to pay winter bills. Bulgaria's independent energy regulator had been discussing raising electricity prices by an average of 11.5% and heating prices by up to 30% for households from Jan.

Major British airlines on Monday called on the government to remove testing rules for vaccinated passengers and provide economic support for the battered sector, as new travel rules were imposed to fight off the Omicron coronavirus variant, Reuters reported. Britain currently requires all inbound travellers to take a pre-departure COVID-19 test and another test on arrival in England, despite their vaccination status, dealing a blow to airlines trying to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic.

Hungary's central bank raised its base rate by 30 basis points to 2.4% on Tuesday, its highest level since May 2014, and pledged further rate hikes next year in order to anchor rising inflation expectations, Reuters reported. The National Bank of Hungary (NBH) also raised the rate on its overnight deposit facility by a larger-than-expected 80 basis points to 2.4%, aligning it with the base rate in a surprise move which the bank said was aimed at supporting the stability of swap market rates. The base rate decision was in line with a Reuters poll forecast last week.

The International Monetary Fund urged the Bank of England on Tuesday to avoid an "inaction bias" when it comes to raising interest rates as it forecast British inflation would hit a 30-year high of around 5.5% next year, Reuters reported. The BoE has said rates will need to rise to ensure that consumer price inflation - currently 4.2% - returns to its 2% target in the next couple of years.