In addition to the financial and monetary statistics compiled by the Eurosystem, the ECB makes intensive use of general economic statistics compiled by Eurostat and the NSIs. First and foremost, this concerns the Harmonised Index of Consumer Prices (HICP) for the euro area, which has continued to be both timely and reliable.
In this context, the gap between inflation perceptions and actual inflation is now decreasing in many euro area countries. As you know, this gap originated when the euro was introduced and it became complex for consumers to process price information.