Recital (8) · Council Decision (EU) 2022/1211

(8)In accordance with Article 1 of Protocol No 13 on the convergence criteria annexed to the TFEU, the criterion on price stability referred to in the first indent of Article 140(1) TFEU means that a Member State has a price performance that is sustainable and an average rate of inflation, observed over a period of one year before the examination, that does not exceed by more than one and a half percentage points that of, at most, the three best performing Member States in terms of price stability. For the purpose of the criterion on price stability, inflation is measured by the harmonised indices of consumer prices (HICPs) defined in Regulation (EU) 2016/792 of the European Parliament and of the Council^note. To assess the price stability criterion, a Member State’s inflation is measured by the percentage change in the arithmetic average of 12 monthly indices, relative to the arithmetic average of 12 monthly indices from the previous period. A reference value calculated as the simple arithmetic average of the inflation rates of the three best-performing Member States in terms of price stability, plus 1,5 percentage points, was used in the reports of the Commission and the ECB. In the one-year period ending in April 2022, the inflation reference value was calculated to be 4,9 %, with France, Finland and Greece as the three best-performing Member States in terms of price stability, with inflation rates of 3,2 %, 3,3 % and 3,6 %, respectively. It is warranted to exclude from the best performers countries the inflation rates of which cannot be seen as a meaningful benchmark for other Member States. Such outliers were in the past identified in 2004, 2010, 2013, 2014 and 2016. Currently, it is warranted to exclude Malta and Portugal from the best performers – in April 2022, the 12-month average inflation rates of Malta and Portugal were respectively 2,1 % and 2,6 % and that of the euro area 4,4 %. For the calculation of the reference value, Malta and Portugal are replaced by Finland and Greece, the Member States with the next-lowest average inflation rates.