Their total GDP represents, at market exchange rates, around 5% of that of the current EU. The task at hand for the new Member States is to advance real convergence, while locking in inflation at low levels, preserving the soundness of the financial sector and making determined efforts towards fiscal consolidation are all of the utmost importance.
It is known that the DI for output prices tends to be downward-biased and the DI for input prices tends to be upward-biased, so the interpretation of these indicators needs to take these tendencies into account.11 The drawback of this approach is that the data are only available for the next quarter, so only very short-term inflation expectations can be measured.