1. european semester conference inter - parliamentary conference on stability, economic coordination and governance in the eu strategic investment and reforms in view of enhancing eu ’ s growth potential opening keynote by pierre wunsch, governor of the national bank of belgium as prepared for delivery • it is an honour to open this session on strategic investment and reforms to boost eu ’ s growth potential. in these uncertain times, this is an even more daunting challenge than ever before. • it is of course impossible to do justice to the richness and complexity of the matter in ten minutes. i can therefore only be impressionistic as monet, the painter, would have been. • at least since the turn of the century, europe has been keenly aware of the structural constraints impinging on its economic dynamism. typically, the policy response has been framed in terms of multi - year plans implying “ more europe ” supported by a grand vision and very often big funding announcements in support of transformative projects or policies. • some of us remember the objective of the lisbon strategy, adopted in 2000, which ambitioned to turn the eu into ( i quote ) “ the most competitive and dynamic knowledge - based economy in the world. ” all this was to be achieved by 2010 thanks to coordinated and ambitious structural reforms. a similar approach was behind the “ europe 2020 ” agenda in 2010 or the commission ’ s investment plan for europe in 2014 ( or juncker plan ) which aimed at encouraging more than 300 billion euro in additional investment over 3 years. • the most recent incarnation of that think - big - spend - big paradigm are the ngeu and fit for 55 ambitions. once again, a cocktail of massive investment and structural reforms should make the eu world champions, this time on the climate front, while still boosting growth and sustainable public finances. • now, do not get me wrong : we do need structural reforms, and more investments and sound public finances, as much as we need a banking union, a capital market union, a fiscal union, and what not. • but there is a growing feeling, impression, and maybe even a consensus that we are lagging behind … behind our own ambitions, but also behind the us and others when it comes to investment, innovation and growth. • recently, the title of an article was reading ( i did not read the article, one does not do that anymore, but i should have tweeted about it ) : “ the us innovates, china imitate

sentiment and retail depositors ’ trust ’, banca d ’ italia, temi di discussione ( working papers ), 1165, 2018. a. carboni and a. moro, ‘ imputation techniques for the nationality of foreign shareholders in italian firms ’, external sector statistics : current issues and new challenges. irving fisher committee on central bank statistics, 2018. see g. ardizzi, s. emiliozzi, j. marcucci and l. monteforte, ‘ news and consumer card payments ’, banca d ’ italia, temi di discussione ( working papers ), 1233, 2019 ; v. aprigliano, g. ardizzi and l. monteforte, ‘ using the payment system data to forecast the italian gdp ’, banca d ’ italia, temi di discussione ( working papers ), 1098, 2017. increasing the sample does not improve the accuracy of the estimates if the source of the bias is not understood and dealt with. the use of massive amounts of rough data may result in an exceptionally good in - sample fit but may perform poorly out - of - sample ( the curse of overfitting ). moreover, when using big data, special attention should be paid to the robustness and stability of the estimates over time. the second challenge is privacy. protecting the integrity and confidentiality of personal data is of paramount importance to our societies. storing personal data in digital repositories belonging to public and private institutions can be risky. we should avoid any use for illegitimate purposes such as the second - hand trading of personal information. at banca d ’ italia, we are exploring new avenues for utilizing microdata without jeopardizing their confidentiality. in this way data from different institutions can be combined to produce aggregate statistics that are important for understanding economic, financial and welfare issues. we have started experimenting some privacy - preserving algorithms with istat. we are also discussing these issues with eurostat and the national authority for personal data protection. the third challenge concerns the preservation of data over time. while we keep producing a huge amount of data, we have not yet agreed on a shared set of criteria for making these data accessible in the future. it is crucial that technology - neutral standards be established to ensure data availability for future generations. coordination between statistical agencies, governments, academia and private companies is equally crucial. timely and accurate information derived from non - traditional data sources, as well as new analytical techniques