boris vuji : stay the course in turbulent times - old and new challenges for central banks speech by mr boris vuji, governor of the croatian national bank, at the 8th annual conference of mediterranean central banks, split, 14 february 2024. * * * dear governors, excellencies, distinguished guests, ladies and gentlemen, good morning to everyone. after a nice evening yesterday, it is my great pleasure to welcome you to the official part of our conference. i am delighted that you could join us on this year's mediterranean central banks'conference that croatia is hosting for the first time in our beautiful city of split. first, let me welcome mr. luis de guindos, vice - president of the european central bank, who kindly accepted our invitation to give a keynote speech at our conference today. i am also happy to welcome my colleague governors – pablo, mario, edward and bostjan. this conference gives us an excellent opportunity to discuss common issues from a broader perspective and from different viewpoints. let me also thank all the panellists and other participants for coming here to enrich the conference by sharing your great knowledge and experience with us. finally, i would like to express my sincere gratitude to our co - organizers from the banco de espana, the oecd, the european institute of the mediterranean and the union for the mediterranean, for all their good work, excellent cooperation and help in organizing this conference. in this regard, i sincerely thank his excellency nasser kamel, secretary general of the ufm, mr. senen florensa, executive president of the iemed, and mr. luiz de mello, director of the oecd's economics department for joining us today and pablo hernandez de cos, governor of the banco de espana. the objective of this conference is to discuss some of the key common challenges we as policymakers face today, from those immediate ones, such as central bank credibility considerations in high inflation environment, to the ones of more structural and longerterm nature, such as inclusion and financial sector risks stemming from climate change. with that agenda in mind, i would like to take a step back and put the current environment in a historical perspective by diving more deeply into the past. as i have said yesterday evening, the city in which we have gathered today - split - was established by the roman emperor diocletian. he built his retirement palace here more than 1700 years ago. textbooks usually mention the ruling

boris vuji : one year with the euro speech by mr boris vuji, governor of the croatian national bank, at the conference " one year with the euro ", zagreb, 30 january 2024. * * * today, one year after the introduction of the euro, we can look back at this historical event and its effect on croatian economy and society as a whole. if i were to sum up in one sentence what the euro has brought to croatia, i would say it has brought all the benefits that we expected and announced, making the croatian economy stronger and more resilient, which was particularly evident amid the specific circumstances of the crisis in which it was introduced. we entered the euro area in circumstances we could have hardly envisaged at the time when we started our journey towards the euro six, seven years ago. it was at the peak of the covid - 19 pandemic in the summer of 2020 that we launched our operational preparations for the euro and we introduced the euro at the time when inflation soared at levels unseen in the western world since the end of the 1970s. in that regard, it is clear that no other eu member state has introduced the common currency against such a background. also, the transition to the euro took place at the time of the strongest monetary policy tightening ever. and lastly, the pronounced geopolitical tensions and uncertainties provided an additional dimension, both economic and political, to the achieved economic and monetary integration of our country. all these specific circumstances notwithstanding, the project of the introduction of the euro was completed successfully in the shortest possible time and the expected economic benefits of the transition to the euro were fully achieved. i would also venture to say that it is exactly such circumstances that made some of the positive effects of the introduction of the euro even greater and more significant. we have always stressed the elimination of the currency risk as one of the main expected positive effects of the introduction of the euro. and this objective was fully achieved. today, the debt of all the sectors in foreign currency is less than 1 % of the total debt, in contrast with some 70 % previously. this is a big leap for croatia, which helped lower the county's risk premium and also restricted the transfer of higher interest rates globally to the domestic financial system. in line with expectations, borrowing costs in croatia are currently lower than they would have been had we remained outside the euro area. namely, we have foreseen that the changeover to euro would lead to the relative