christian noyer : first experiences with the euro speech by christian noyer, vice - president of the european central bank, delivered at the international center for monetary and banking studies, held in geneva, on 20 march 2001. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i am pleased and honoured to be able to speak to such a distinguished and varied audience today. i am sure you will appreciate in what an exciting and important time we are living. in slightly more than nine months, the euro banknotes and coins will be in the hands and pockets of all citizens of the participating member states. the euro will thus become tangible in the personal dealings of 300 million europeans and cease to exist only on computer screens or in the press headlines. travelling from the sunny islands of the mediterranean to the icy lakes of scandinavia will no longer require any stop at a bureau de change. this is no little achievement, to my mind. while the introduction of euro banknotes and coins will certainly bring about a quantum leap in people's acceptance of the euro and change their psychological attitude towards it, we should not forget that a great deal has already been done and that monetary union is already fully - fledged reality. i am by no means an impartial observer, but i think that the first two years of monetary union have been a success. i hope to have convinced you of that by the end of my talk. the euro - the crowning achievement of the single market programme - has de facto created a common market of 300 million consumers, one of the two most important economies in the world. this reinforces the possibilities for producers to exploit the economies of scale that - at least since the work of adam smith - are regarded as one of the main engines driving economic growth and technological progress. competition is being fostered and will be fostered even more in the future by the increased price transparency that the introduction of euro banknotes and coins will bring about. during the first two years of economic and monetary union ( emu ) in europe, we have dealt with the difficult task of consolidating a new central bank, the european central bank ( ecb ). this has been by no means easy, also because the ecb plays a role of global importance and is continuously in the limelight of public attention. in my view, the ecb has proved to be very well equipped to tackle the challenges it is confronted with in a successful manner. an important contribution to this is to be attributed to the drafters of the

jean - claude trichet : growth performance, labour productivity and structural reforms in the euro area speech by mr jean - claude trichet, president of the european central bank, before the student forum at the university of hohenheim, stuttgart, 20 january 2006. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i am grateful to the organisers of this event [ global panel ] for inviting me here today and allowing me to share with you my views on some important issues for the euro area economy. the topic of my speech – the long - term growth performance of the euro area – is an issue that is of major importance for our continent for it commands not only its prosperity but also its relative influence in a global economy which is experiencing major structural changes. in my talk today i will explain what the main driving forces behind growth are, and in particular the role played by productivity growth. allow me to suggest that while the role of ‘ genius ’ in enhancing productivity is undeniable, as gottlieb daimler and robert bosch demonstrated so well in this city, we should not be complacent and wait for it to happen. maybe it is appropriate in this context to recall the words of another great inventor, thomas alva edison : “ genius is 1 % inspiration and 99 % perspiration ”. from my perspective, not being complacent means remembering that sound macroeconomic policies, pro - competition product market regulations and well - functioning labour markets provide a favourable environment for productivity growth. i will structure my remarks as follows. first, i will present an assessment of the growth performance of the euro area. second, i will focus on productivity developments in the euro area since the mid - 1990s. third, i will explain the role of economic policies in promoting productivity growth. finally, i will conclude by explaining where, in my opinion, responsibilities for fostering growth and prosperity in the euro area lie. growth performance of the euro area there is evidence of increasing disparities in growth between developed countries. before the 1990s there was a catching - up process, with the lower gdp per capita economies growing faster than the richer economies, but this pattern is less clear in more recent data. let ’ s compare growth in the us and the euro area. from 1960 up until the late 1970s average real output per capita growth was higher in the countries that now make up the euro area ; in the 1980s it was roughly the same, but by the mid - 1990s it was lower. actually, euro