andrey gurov : speech - the future of money speech by mr andrey gurov, deputy governor of the bulgarian national bank, at the sixth banking and financial forum : " the future of money ", organised by the manager magazine, sofia, 17 october 2023. * * * ladies and gentlemen, dear hosts from the manager magazine! i would like to thank you for the invitation to open this event. it is indeed taking place at an extremely important moment, both for the institution that i represent and for the society, the business and our country as a whole. in my previous role as a professor, this presentation would have lasted about an hour. today, however, i will try to be very focused in my speech so as not to take up of the time for the interesting panels and commentators that you will have. in the last few years i have often been asked the question - do you like what you do, do you feel satisfied? i'm sure that you have asked yourselves the same question. and the answer is never trivial. regardless of the personal achievements in the career, in the family, there always comes a time when this question pops up in our minds and everyone begins to search for their mission, this thing that gives an answer to the question of why we are here in this place at this particular moment. because the moment at which we are asking ourselves that question is extremely important, i would even call it historical. looking at the people in this room, most of us here belong to a generation that was locked between two periods, of communism and of democracy, the so - called'transition '. and that is why we are still looking for our meaning and for our vocation. over the last 35 years we, as a society and as a country, have taken several key steps that charted bulgaria's development path. the most important of these steps are undoubtedly bulgaria's accession to nato and to the eu. and if we look objectively at the development of our country during that period and compare it with that of countries outside these structures, the assessment will be unequivocal and positive. belonging to these structures is not enough, but it is certainly a necessary condition for our future sustainable development as an economy and democracy. they are an open door to a better and fairer life, but we ourselves as a society have to walk through that door. this is also the main reason why we cannot yet say that the transition is over. because we have unfinished business

last century the newly created euro replaced the deutsche mark as the reserve currency of the currency board in bulgaria. to sum up, our own experience is part of the global history of alternating monetary policy regimes. it motivates our interest in both the history and future of monetary unions. as central bankers we do look forward to the papers and discussions today, since the historical perspectives therein should also bring out rather relevant contemporary insights for policy. after the covid19 outbreak disrupted our usual ways of communication and in - person contacts, this may be among the first international conferences on financial and economic history to take place physically again. to be more precise – almost entirely physically – since some of our speakers have had to deal with last - minute unforeseen circumstances and will present their research remotely. thus, today we will have the opportunity to appreciate a series of papers and presentations, 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches commencing with the keynote speech by thomas mayer. he will lay ground by pairing the two main functions of money. on the one hand, money is a means of transaction that stores value over time and space while being a standardised unit of account to record this exchange. on the other hand, the printing or minting of money has been a potent funding instrument and a symbol of the state. therefore, we expect to hear what motivates sovereign states to choose to adopt a common currency in a monetary union. we have seen in history how newly established states are eager to reaffirm independence in their internal political discourse by creating a national currency, but then resort to pegging to global currencies if, for example, in need to rein inflation or gain overall policy credibility. sometimes they even adopt a foreign currency as their own unilaterally, as demonstrated by recent examples in close parts of europe ( kosovo and montenegro ). after the introduction and the keynote, the conference explores four directions of thought on the topic of monetary unions in history. a panel is devoted to each of them. the first panel will explore the link between monetary unions and economic integration by offering a glimpse in their history. the second session will focus on twentieth century monetary unions following the great and continuous economic stress of the first world war. the third panel will examine monetary unions as facilitating tools for greater customs and economic integration within the comecon and the austro - hungarian empire. finally, the last session will address the question to what extent the political relations transcend in the monetary unions as well illustrated by the great