in the last two years. securities designed to finance green and social projects, which account for the majority of the market, have seen a particularly strong increase. - over the same period, sustainability - linked bonds recorded the highest growth rate. however, the relevance of these instruments in the overall debt securities market remains minor. another interesting aspect highlighted by these experimental indicators is holdings. since the beginning of 2021, euro area holdings of sustainable debt securities have grown continuously, following a similar trend to the one observed for euro area issuances. these instruments are becoming increasingly relevant investment alternatives but overall remain a minor portfolio item. challenges we have several sources and data providers to shed light on the evolution of sustainable finance instruments, but what exactly is a sustainable bond market? the information presented above provides an overview of euro area residents ’ issuances and holdings of debt instruments with sustainability characteristics. these indicators provide information on the proceeds raised to finance sustainable projects. in the case of green bonds, they are identified as “ debt securities where the proceeds are used to finance projects with clear environmental benefits ” and various sources are used to gain a broader picture. since debt securities are considered sustainable if they are at least labelled as such by their issuers ( i. e. self - labelled ), in addition to the information provided by data providers, the loosest level of assurance is relied upon. the ecb notes that remaining limitations are mostly due to the lack of internationally accepted harmonised definitions of certain concepts. 2 in recent years, financial market initiatives have moved ahead of legislation and several private providers have developed labels to identify green bonds and other sustainabilityrelated bonds, for example, the international capital market association and the climate bonds initiative. however, this does not mean that there is a single definition. in the european union, the european commission has been working over the last few years on the development of a european green bonds standard in order to establish uniform requirements for issuers of this type of bond. the main characteristics proposed by the european commission are : - taxonomy alignment : meaning that the funds raised by the bond should be allocated to projects that are aligned with the eu taxonomy. - transparency as to how bond proceeds are allocated, through detailed reporting requirements. - external review : all european green bonds must be checked by an external reviewer to ensure compliance with regulations and taxonomy alignment of the funded projects, and, see ecb ( 2023 ). towards climate - related statistical indicators. statistics committee of the european system of central banks. january

. in this regard, the banco de espana has made a significant effort to provide researchers with various microdata bases, most recently through the banco de espana data laboratory ( belab ). in particular, belab has been created with the aim of providing the research community with greater access to high - quality microdata, in a controlled environment that ensures data confidentiality, through on - site or remote means depending on the sensitivity of the data. the microdata available at belab include the survey of household finances, the survey of financial competences, the balance sheet data of non - financial corporations and microdata on loans to legal persons. i would strongly encourage all of you to have a look at these data, because i honestly believe that allowing independent researchers to access high - quality data is a necessary step to enhance our knowledge of the spanish economy. and this annual conference specifically should be seen as another step in furthering our commitment to research as an indispensable tool for improving economic policymaking, in this case with the focus on understanding and monitoring developments in the spanish economy as a basis for promoting well founded economic policy decisions. we wish to strengthen our interaction with the research community in this field as a way of better discharging our legal responsibility to provide advice to the spanish governments on economic policy matters. and related to this responsibility, the annual report of the bank, that it´s regularly presented to parliament, offers an analysis of recent developments in the spanish economy within the global setting, as well as how it is likely to perform in the future and the challenges it faces. in addition, it also includes the recommendations that, in the banco de espana's view, it would be desirable to implement, to tackle these challenges. indeed, such an interaction of research and policy is even more pressing in the current juncture, characterised as it is by a highly uncertain context and the need to address important structural challenges, which i will elaborate on next. let me now comment briefly on the main challenges that lie ahead for the spanish economy, which are also the backbone of the programme of this conference. as we all know, the spanish economy was one of those most severely hit by the effects of the pandemic. and the recovery after the most acute phase of the covid - 19 pandemic has been tempered by supply chain disruptions and, in the second half of 2021, by higher energy commodity prices, which were further exacerbated by the russian invasion of