31. 7. 98 Official Journal of the European Communities L 214/23 COUNCIL REGULATION (EC) No 1688/98 of 20 July 1998 amending Commission Regulation (EC) No 1749/96 concerning the geographic and population coverage of the harmonised index of consumer prices THE COUNCIL OF THE EUROPEAN UNION, Having regard to the Treaty establishing the European Community, Having regard to Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 of 23 October 1995 concerning harmonised indices of consumer prices ('), and in particular Article 4 and Article 5(3) thereof, Having regard to the proposal from the Commission, Having regard to the opinion of the European Central Bank (%), Whereas, by virtue of Article 5(1)(b) of Regulation (EC) No 2494/95, each Member State is required to produce a harmonised index of consumer prices (HICP) starting with the index for January 1997; whereas the requirement to produce HICPS in no way puts in question the right of Member States to publish their national, non-harmonised, inflation indices, which they may wish to use for national policy purposes; Whereas Commission Regulation (EC) No 1749/96 of 9 September on initial implementing measures for Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 concerning har- monised indices of consumer prices () set down the initial coverage for HICPs that was restricted to those goods and services covered by all or most national consumer prices indices (CPIs); Whereas Council Regulation (EC) No 1687/98 of 20 July 1998, amending Commission  Regulation (EC) No 1749/96 concerning the coverage of goods and services of the harmonised index of consumer prices (*) defined the coverage of the HICP as those goods and services which are included in household final monetary consumption expenditure; Whereas Article 3 of Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 requires that the HICP should be based on the prices of goods and services available for purchase in the economic territory of the Member State for the purposes of directly satisfying consumer needs; whereas the weights of the HICP require a harmonised definition of their geographic and population coverage; Whereas the compilation of the Monetary Union index of consumer prices (MUICP) and the European index of () OJ L 257, 27. 10. 1995, p. 1. (%) Opinion delivered on 14 July 1998 (not yet published in the Official Journal). () OJ L 229, 10. 9. 1996, p. 3. () See page 12 of this Official Journal. consumer prices (EICP) requires a harmonised geographic concept for the HICPs; Whereas the Statistical Programme Committee (SPC) has not delivered an opinion within the time limit set by its chairman; whereas, in this case, following the procedure laid down in Article 14(2) of Regulation (EC) No 2494/95, the Commission shall, without delay, submit to the Council a proposal relating to the measures to be taken, HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION: Article 1 Regulation (EC) No 1749/96 shall be amended as follows: 1. Subparagraph (a)(2) of Article 2 shall be replaced by the following: (a)2) “Household final monetary consumption ex- penditure” is defined as that part of final consumption expenditure which is incurred: — by houscholds irrespective of nationality or residence status, and — in monetary transactions, and — on the economic territory of the Member State, and — on goods and services that are used for the direct satisfaction of individual needs or wants, and — in one or both of the time periods being compared. Household final monetary consumption expen- diture is specified in Annex 1b and follows the definitions laid down in the European System of Accounts (ESA) 1995 contained in Regulation (EC) No 2223/96 (7). () OJ L 310, 13.11.1996, p. 1.; 2. the following paragraph shall be added to Article 3: 3. HICPs compiled using sub-index weights which reflect final monetary consumption expenditure of a sub-set of households, rather than of all households, shall be deemed comparable, where this difference in practice accounts for less than one part in a thousand of the total expenditure covered by the HICP. Any amendments of the weights necessary to secure com- parability as defined in this paragraph shall be imple- mented by December 1999 at the latest.’;