20 years of HICP - Produit Actualité Eurostat

March 2017 marks the 20th anniversary of the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP). The HICP was designed as a comparable measure of consumer price inflation within the euro area and the EU. Since the very beginning, it has provided high-quality information for economic and monetary policy-making and for European citizens.

In the early years, the most important use of the HICP was for the assessment of price convergence for those Member States aiming to join the euro. After the launch of the euro, the focus changed. Today, the main use of the HICP is for the European Central Bank to monitor price stability.

The HICP is the result of major harmonisation work by Eurostat and Member States within the European Statistical System (ESS). And it keeps developing, as price statistics experts continually address new challenges for the measurement of inflation in a rapidly changing economic environment.

The full HICP data set is published each month according to a pre-announced schedule – in general between 16 and 18 days after the end of the reference month. Each month, Eurostat also publishes an HICP flash estimate for the euro area as a whole. It gives an early indication of what euro area inflation is likely to be. The flash estimate is generally released on the last working day of the reference month.

Inflation in the euro area 1997–2017 as measured by the HICP

20 years of the HICP – Milestones

More information can be found in the dedicated section on HICP.