On the contrary, support should focus on 16  Indexation clauses already cover 24.4% of wage-earners with an agreement in force for 2022, compared with 16.1% at end-2021. By 2023, they will cover 45% of wage-earners with an agreement in force for that year, although as yet this only includes a limited number of workers. 11  lower-income households, who bear the brunt of inflation, and the firms most vulnerable to this new shock. Moreover, any measures should be temporary, so as not to further increase the structural budget deficit, which was already very high even before the pandemic. They should also be designed to avoid significant distortions to price signals. But offsetting the adverse effects of the current supply-side shock also calls for ambitious policies to boost productivity growth and potential GDP. In other words, the optimal economic policy response to an adverse supply shock, such as the present one, entails structural reforms (including, naturally, of the energy market) to ease the supply-side tensions. The common European instrument to realise this ambition is the European Union’s NGEU recovery plan. Under NGEU, investment projects must be carefully selected in order to optimally complement, and act as a catalyst for, private investment. But they must also be accompanied by, or even help fund, structural reforms to support, for example, the reallocation of resources across firms and sectors. At the same time, the sustainability of national public finances must be ensured; this is essential for the smooth functioning of the monetary union.

The actual implementation of the International Financial Reporting Standards is part of the central bank’s area of concerns, since relevant and adequate assessments of credit institutions’ assets, debts and shareholders’ equity are essential prerequisites for the calculation of real prudential indicators. In order to fulfil this objective, the NBR has steadily cooperated with the commercial banks and the Romanian Banking Association and has enjoyed the support of leading consulting and audit firms in Romania. The Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales, an institution famous for its rich experience regarding International Financial Reporting Standards, has recently provided the NBR support to carry on/complete the implementation of financial reporting standards. Today, its experts will present useful information and recommendations to accurately comprehend and implement the International Financial Reporting Standards. Within the process of accounting reform intended for credit institutions in Romania, following the transposition of the EU acquis – given that European standards did not establish any rules –, the NBR has contributed to the enlargement of the European regulatory framework by adopting solutions consistent with the principles of International Financial Reporting Standards. Thus, the implementation of these standards at individual level by credit institutions in Romania has taken a graduated approach. At consolidated level, i.e. banking groups, the International Financial Reporting Standards have been transposed via a seamless approach; the NBR exerted its national options embedded in the acquis, but included all credit institutions, not only the listed ones, in the scope of applicability.