Regulation (EU) 2016/792 on harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index

What it is

to establish a common legal framework for the production of harmonised indices by Member States. PROPOSED ACT: Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council. ROLE OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT: the European Parliament decides in accordance with the ordinary legislative procedure and on an equal footing with the Council. BACKGROUND: harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) are designed to measure inflation in a harmonised manner across Member States. The Commission and the European Central Bank use the HICP in their assessment of price stability in Member States under Article 140 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. The Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs adopted the report by Roberto GUALTIERI (S&D, IT) on the proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised indices of consumer prices and repealing Regulation (EC) No 2494/95. The committee recommended that the European Parliament’s position at first reading following the ordinary legislative procedure should amend the Commission proposal as follows: Subject matter : this Regulation lays down a common framework for the development, production and dissemination of harmonised indices of consumer prices ( HICP, HICP-CT, OOH price index ) and of the house price index (HPI) at Union, national and sub-national level. Compilation of harmonised indices : the amended text stipulated that neither the HICP nor the HICP-CT shall cover transactions between households, except in the case of rentals paid by tenants to private landlords, where the latter act as market producers of services purchased by households (tenants). OOH indices shall be compiled, where possible and provided that the data is available, for the 10 years preceding the entry into force of this Regulation. Depending on the outcome of the report on the suitability of the owner-occupied housing indices for integration into HICP coverage as provided for in Regulation EU) No 93/2013 , the Commission may adopt, within one year of the publication of that report, a delegated act to integrate the OOH index into the HICP. Comparability of the harmonised indices : the Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts for the amendment of the Annex in order to ensure comparability at international level of the breakdown of HICP by ECOICOP categories. In order to ensure uniform conditions of implementation, and for the purposes of achieving the objectives of this Regulation, further details for producing comparable harmonised indices shall be defined by means of implementing acts. Such implementing acts shall concern: (i) sampling and representativity; (ii) collection and treatment of prices; (iii) replacements and quality adjustment; (iv) index compilation; (v) revisions; (vi) special indices; (vii) treatment of products in specific areas. Data requirements : Member States shall collect basic information representative of their country in order to produce harmonised indices and their sub-indices. The amended text stipulated that the sub-indices of ECOICOP that are not required to be produced by the Member States , either because they do not cover household final…

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