mario draghi : 20th anniversary of the euro speech by mr mario draghi, president of the european central bank, at the session of the plenary of the european parliament to mark the anniversary of the euro, strasbourg, 15 january 2019. * * * it is with great pleasure that i am here today to celebrate with you the first 20 years of the euro. the euro is the most tangible representation of european integration that our citizens encounter, on a daily basis. it is fitting, then, to celebrate this anniversary here with the directly elected representatives of all our citizens. over the years, elected representatives and leaders here and in other parliaments have rightly recognised that ensuring economic prosperity and stability over the long term is a shared challenge that is best faced collectively. we are stronger together. with the single market, we have a powerful engine of sustainable growth to underpin our living standards. the euro has safeguarded the integrity of the single market. today, our economies are integrated to a point that was not imaginable when the euro was designed. intra - eu exports rose from 13 % of eu gdp in 1992 to 20 % today and value chains are everywhere in the euro area. the euro has produced two decades of price stability also in countries where this was a long lost memory. stable prices have fostered people ’ s confidence in the value of their savings, which is one of the conditions for prosperity. based on such confidence, firms invest and create new jobs. today most challenges are global and can be addressed only together. it is this “ togetherness ” that magnifies the ability of individual countries to retain the sovereignty over the relevant matters, sovereignty that would otherwise be lost in this global world. it is precisely in this sense that the single currency has given to all members of the euro area their monetary policy sovereignty, compared with the pre - existing monetary arrangements. it is together that we have a voice in the regulation of international financial markets ; a voice, which has been fundamental in reshaping the world financial regulation after the global financial crisis. but in some countries, not all of the euro ’ s benefits have been realised in full. partly, this is because reforms at national level are necessary, and they would be so under any monetary system, to produce sustainable growth ; partly, because the economic and monetary union ( emu ) remains incomplete. great progress has been achieved since the crisis struck, but more work still needs to be done ; and there is no alternative to a future

benoit cœure : currency fluctuations – the limits to benign neglect speech by mr benoit cœure, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the luncheon panel “ currency wars and the g - 20 ’ s goal of strong, sustainable, and balanced growth ”, at the conference on “ currency wars – economic realities, institutional responses, and the g - 20 agenda ”, peterson institute for international economics, washington, dc, 2 april 2013. * * * i wish to thank luca dedola and giovanni lombardo for their contributions to this speech and georges pineau for his remarks. i remain solely responsible for the opinions contained herein. ladies and gentlemen, i would like to thank the peterson institute for the invitation to speak in this panel. in my remarks today, i wish to consider the current debate on competitive devaluations and the peril of a currency war. large policy spillovers in an increasingly integrated world economy naturally raise the possibility of inefficiencies. national policy - makers, who pursue a domestic objective and ignore the externalities they impose on other countries, may find themselves in equilibria that entail collective welfare losses. policies that are efficient for the global economy are not necessarily optimal from the national vantage point, and there is a temptation to shift the burden and costs of adjustment abroad, and maximise the net gains accruing to national residents. a classic example of the application of this framework to monetary policy is ragnar nurkse ’ s well - known analysis of the devaluations that took place in the interwar period. since then, concerns about spirals of competitive devaluations have motivated the design of institutions and rules – from the bretton woods arrangements of 1944 to the group of twenty – to prevent countries from adopting “ beggar thy neighbour ” policies1. the lessons from the crises of the interwar period continue to have an impact on policy discussions today, as the world economy is adjusting to the great recession. some central banks in major industrialised countries are currently pursuing, or have announced policy measures to stem entrenched deflationary pressures and bring down unemployment levels. because policy interest rates are at or close to their lower bound in these economies, monetary easing has taken the form of non - standard measures, such as forward guidance concerning the path of future policy rates, and / or quantitative easing. these measures have had domestic effects ( e. g. raising inflation expectations ) ; but