Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2024/3159 of 2 September 2024 amending Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council on harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index as regards the classification of consumption and the inclusion of games of chance

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 May 2016 on harmonised indices of consumer prices and the house price index, and repealing Council Regulation (EC) No 2494/95 (1), and in particular Articles 4(3) and 5(8) thereof,

Whereas:

(1) Article 4(3) of Regulation (EU) 2016/792 empowers the Commission to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 10 for the amendment of Annex I, in order to ensure comparability of the harmonised indices at international level in accordance with changes to the United Nations Classification of Individual Consumption according to purpose (UN COICOP).

(2) The 49th session of the United Nations Statistical Commission considered and endorsed a revised version of the UN COICOP as the internationally accepted standard. In order to align the European classification of individual consumption according to purpose (ECOICOP) with the revised UN COICOP, Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2016/792 should be amended. The revised classification reflects the significant changes in the nature of consumption patterns of households that have occurred since the original UN COICOP from 1999.

(3) Methodological guidelines have been produced by the Commission (Eurostat) that should ensure a sufficient degree of harmonisation for the compilation of a sub-index for games of chance. Therefore, games of chance should be included in the harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) and the harmonised indices of consumer prices at constant tax rates (HICP-CT).

(4) Due to the amendment to the classification in Annex I to Regulation (EU) 2016/792 and to ensure consistency between that classification and the table in Article 5(8) of that Regulation, the table should be understood as referring to the amended classification as regards the products listed in the table.

(5) Regulation (EU) 2016/792 should be amended accordingly.

(6) To allow time to implement the new classification in Member States’ systems, the regulation should apply to the transmission of HICP and HICP-CT data to the Commission (Eurostat) from reference month January 2026 onward,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation (EU) 2016/792 is amended as follows:

(2) Annex I is replaced by the text in the Annex to this Regulation.

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply to the transmission of harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICP) and harmonised indices of consumer prices at constant tax rates (HICP-CT) data to the Commission (Eurostat) from reference month January 2026.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 2 September 2024.

For the Commission The President Ursula VON DER LEYEN

(1) OJ L 135, 24.5.2016, p. 11.