by war. i am only too happy to leave the debate about what that implies for the political organisation of europe - including the relationship between european institutions and the individual member states - to the politicians. my interest is in the economic dimension of europe - though i realise of course that economics and politics can ’ t in practice be separated quite as neatly as this distinction suggests. the “ economics ” of europe starts from familiar arguments in favour of free trade and competition as the most effective means of ensuring that productive resources are efficiently deployed, promoting specialisation in areas of comparative advantage - and thereby satisfying consumer demands more effectively and increasing aggregate, macro - economic, welfare. these arguments apply, in principle quite generally - as much to international trade and competition as to regional trade and competition or indeed to trade and competition within individual national markets. the macro - economic benefits are less immediately obvious at the micro - economic level. existing activity is threatened by greater competition, and there is a natural temptation - to employees, their employers and their national governments - to seek to defend their established activity through protective action in one form or another. the benefits of greater competition, and of the removal of barriers or distortions to free trade, on the other hand, flow essentially from the future activity that is likely to result - so that they are much less tangible. and the benefits - anyway in the short - term - do not necessarily accrue evenly across the free trade area - they accrue to those that are flexible and adaptable enough to take advantage of the new opportunities that free trade offers. so [UNK] that although we know that in principle at the macro - economic level free trade and competition are a powerful positive sum game - and although we have seen it clearly enough in practice - there are always likely to be visible - and vocal - losers. and that is bound to provoke outbursts of popular resistance. against that background establishing and maintaining free trade to the extent that that has been achieved in the eu is in itself a remarkable achievement. but the eu has already in many areas gone well beyond just free trade, in establishing the single market. that involves more than the free movement of goods and services within europe. it involves also the free movement of both labour and capital, as well as supporting european legislation to avoid market distortions from, for example, state aids, or government procurement, or restrictive practices within the private sector. this further pooling of sovereignty has essentially the same purpose - it is designed to reinforce the macro - economic

), “ concurrent shifts in wintering distribution and phenology in migratory swans : individual and generational effects ”, global change biology, vol 26, no 8, pp. 4263 - 4275. 2. taleb, n. ( 2007 ), “ the black swan : the impact of the highly improbable ”, penguin books. 3. bolton, p., depres, m., pereira da silva, l., samama, f. and svartzman, r. ( 2020 ), “ the green swan ”, bank for international settlements. 4. carney, m. ( 2015 ), “ breaking the tragedy of the horizon ”, speech at lloyd ’ s of london, 29 september. 5. ahead of this conference, reclaim finance, positive money, the climate safe lending network ( csl ), the new economics foundation ( nef ), re : common, greenpeace, banktrack and public citizen published a note entitled “ the green swan toolkit : four priorities to ensure financial stability in the age of climate change ” which sets out four areas of progress to prevent green swans materialising. 6. the ecb is among the ngfs members that are currently finalising an economy - wide stress test, see also shining a light on climate risk : the ecb ’ s economy - wide climate stress test, blogpost by luis de guindos, vice - president of the ecb, march 2021. 7. ngfs ( 2021 ), “ progress report on bridging data gaps ”, ngfs technical document, may. 8. see also ngfs and inspire launch a joint research project on'biodiversity and financial stability ', ngfs press release, 6 april 2021. 9. de nederlandsche bank recently examined the material exposures of dutch financial institutions to risks stemming from biodiversity loss. according to its report, dutch financial institutions have provided €510 billion in finance worldwide to companies that are highly dependent on ecosystem services, with €28 billion exposed to products that depend on pollination alone. de nederlandsche bank ( 2020 ), “ indebted to nature – exploring biodiversity risks for the dutch financial sector ”, june. 10. a court in the netherlands last week ordered royal dutch shell to make deeper and faster cuts in carbon dioxide emissions than it had planned. 11. in 2019 the supreme court in the netherlands held that the dutch state was under an obligation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions