Harmonized Indices of Consumer Prices (HICP)

Legislation relating to Harmonized Indices of Consumer Prices includes:

• Framework regulation (2494/1995)
• Initial implementing measures (1749/1996)
• Sub-indices (2214/1996)
• Weights (2454/1997)
• Coverage of goods and services (1687/1998)
• Geographic and population coverage (1688/1998)
• Treatment of tariffs (2646/1998)
• Treatment of insurance (1617/1999)
• Revised sub-indices (1749/1999)
• Treatment of products in the health, education and social protection sectors (2166/1999)
• Timing of entering purchaser prices (2601/2000)
• Treatment of price reductions (2602/2000)
• Treatment of service charges (1920/2001 and corrigenda)
• Minimum standards for revisions (1921/2001 and corrigenda)
• Common index reference period (1708/2005)
• Temporal coverage of price collection (701/2006)
• Sampling (1334/2007)
• Seasonal products (330/2009)
  
•  Weights (1114/2010) :

Commission Regulation (EU) No 1114/2010 of 1 December 2010 laying down detailed rules for the implementation of Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 as regards minimum standards for the quality of HICP weightings and repealing Commission Regulation (EC) No 2454/97 (Official Journal of the European Union on 2 December 2010, p. 4).

The adopted regulation sets the minimum standards for the quality of HICP weightings by setting rules for the choice of the data source for weights and for the frequency of updating to be applied at the European level. It defines the National Accounts as the preferred data source and sets the requirements for annual updating.

 

The new regulation represents a further big step in harmonization of consumer price statistics compilation methods and improves the comparability and reliability of the HICP, a key indicator for the measurement of economic convergence and also used directly for the conduct of monetary policy by the ECB.

• Recommendation on the treatment of issues relating to health care reform (881/2005)

• Report from the Commission to the Council on harmonisation of Consumer Price Indices in the European Union (COM(1998) 104 final - 27.2.1998)
• Report from the Commission to the Council on harmonisation of Consumer Price Indices in the European Union (COM(2000) 742 final - 21.11.2000)