his proactive engagement for making this mas - acpr - bdf cooperation flourish. francois was the right man in the right place to take up the challenge of launching and leading our rep office here, building notably on his former experience as head rep for the americas. your achievements francois are all the more remarkable when considering that you took office exactly when in person, face to face, interactions, were hampered for a long while by lockdown measures. i also want to give a very warm welcome to stephane latouche. building on his wide raging 1 / 4 bis - central bankers'speeches experience within and outside the bank, he will i am sure contribute to develop further the activities of our rep office with all of you, and notably deepen our bilateral ties with the mas, notably for future innovation partnerships. as a matter of fact, innovation never stops, innovation is above all change. financial innovation illustrates this time of rapid change, with a wave of new players, new digital assets in the form of crypto - assets, as well as new exchange and settlement infrastructures. among those digitalisation trends, so - called " decentralised finance ", defi, is emerging. defi is a set of applications offering financial services based on crypto - assets, operating on public blockchains and using smart contracts. we need as supervisors and providers of settlement services in central bank money to stay alert, explore its opportunities and address challenges it raises. ii. impact on bdf activities and stability mandate to that end we have been developing our actions along two axes that should serve as an additional basis for the dialogue and cooperation we have been developing from here in singapour. 1. the first axis is to move beyond the first generation of crypto - asset regulation indeed, the first generation of crypto - asset regulations does not fully address the challenges posed by defi. for example, in europe, fully " decentralised " services are excluded from the scope of the mica regulation. to go beyond this first step, we need to build a regulatory framework adapted to the specificities of defi. in my view, when designing this framework we should not try to replicate existing financial regulations at all costs. on the contrary, it could be advantageous to draw inspiration from regulations in other sectors. for example, one could imagine setting rules on " products " even when their " producer " or " issuer " is not clearly identified. in addition, we have to recognise the technical

as 85 % of luxembourgers and 81 % of germans [ slide 4 ]. this popular support is our greatest success and our greatest asset. and it proves that the concept of europe is popular as long as it stops being abstract and takes the form of concrete projects. 2 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches however, during the past 20 years, the euro area has essentially forged ahead through crises, with the creation of the european stability mechanism – located in luxembourg – to help member states following the greek crisis in 2012 or the banking union in 2014 in response to the spanish or irish crises. as it appears that a financial crisis is increasingly distant, general european interest has now waned. this is a serious problem : until now, we have not been able to properly take advantage of the more favourable economic climate in order to prevent a new crisis. and this takes me to our challenges for 2019. ii. our challenges in the face of 2019 ’ s uncertainties a - a slowdown rather than a downturn, in a more fragile environment a word first on the economic environment. at both the global and european level, activity is decelerating, but we are still a long way from experiencing a downturn. in 2019, global growth should at best be in line with 2018 ’ s level – 3. 7 % according to the imf – subject to a downside risk. in the euro area, 5 according to our latest projections, growth should come out at 1. 7 % compared with 1. 9 % in 2018. although revised downwards, our baseline scenario remains relatively favourable. that said, at the start of 2019, we face three challenges : uncertainty, impatience and isolationism. the most immediate one is the uncertainty over the outcome of the brexit vote. even if we don ’ t want it, prudence requires that we prepare ourselves for the possibility of a no - deal brexit, the impact of which would be more significant for the united kingdom than for the euro area. however, any consequences for financial stability must and can be managed. but there are also considerable uncertainties outside europe. the us cycle appears to be reaching maturity after an expansionary phase that began in mid - 2009, but it is still far too early to worry about a recession. growth should remain robust at around 2. 3 % compared with 3 % in 2018, although at the expense of an ill - timed fiscal stimulus. there are greater uncertainties overshadowing the chinese economy. the latest