Toward that end, as you know, Eurostat publishes harmonized indexes of consumer prices that are constructed using a common basket of goods and services for each EU member state and using similar statistical methodology. These measures should go a long way toward providing a conceptually sound basis for judging convergence of EU member states in the selection of countries to participate in monetary union.
Subsequent to monetary union, harmonized consumer prices can be used as the best available measure of inflation in the Euro area. However, as it now stands, the harmonized measures do not contain a broad coverage of consumer services. Most notably, the costs of owner-occupied housing -- a sizable share of consumer expenditures -- are excluded from the harmonized indexes.