european central bank : press conference - introductory statement introductory statement by mr willem f duisenberg, president of the european central bank and mr lucas papademos, vice - president of the european central bank, at the press conference held in frankfurt, 8 may 2003. * * * ladies and gentlemen, the vice - president and i will now report on the outcome of today ’ s meeting of the governing council of the ecb. the first news i can report is that today we successfully concluded our discussions of the ecb ’ s monetary policy strategy. however, i would ask you to postpone any questions you may have on this subject to a little later this afternoon. a press release will be issued on this matter and mr. issing will join us for a special press briefing in the form of a seminar on the outcome of our discussions. this seminar will take place in this room immediately after the press conference. you will also note that, as a consequence of the conclusions we reached, i have restructured today ’ s introductory statement somewhat, and i will be following this new structure in the future. the introductory statement will henceforth present first economic analysis, followed by monetary analysis. it concludes by crosschecking the analyses conducted under these two pillars. turning now to our discussion of monetary policy, we have decided to keep our key interest rates unchanged. taking due account of new economic and monetary information as well as the latest geopolitical developments, we concluded that the current monetary policy stance remains consistent with the preservation of price stability over the medium term. at the same time it maintains a monetary environment that is conducive to economic growth. with the end of the military action in iraq, important downside risks to the economic recovery have diminished, and our focus is now again on the other forces that have been shaping the economic outlook. the governing council will carefully monitor future developments and assess whether conditions for price stability continue to develop favourably. let me explain our assessment in detail. in the context of our economic analysis, focusing on the short to medium term, recently published survey data and the latest information from conjunctural indicators suggest that economic activity in the euro area has remained subdued so far this year. looking ahead, we continue to expect a gradual strengthening of real gdp growth to start later in 2003 and to gather more pace in the course of next year. factors supporting this outlook are an expected recovery of global demand, the prospect of falling inflation benefiting real disposable income

jorgovanka tabakovi : introductory address - 2024 banking law conference introductory address by dr jorgovanka tabakovi, governor of the national bank of serbia, at the 2024 banking law conference, belgrade, 18 november 2024. * * * esteemed speakers and guests, dear colleagues, esteemed associates, seven months ago, the national bank of serbia sponsored the establishment of the banking law association, and i had the pleasure of inaugurating its founding assembly as governor. a few experts in this field came together with the vision of gathering many more professionals and practitioners in banking in the future. their aim was to facilitate the exchange of genuine knowledge, experience, and professionalism – qualities that seem increasingly scarce across all fields of social life and work, including banking law. furthermore, they sought to make this legal discipline appealing to younger colleagues as the safeguarding of the financial stability we have worked so hard to achieve will be their task, to be accomplished through regulation and practice. today, i have the honour and pleasure of opening the first international conference organised by this association, which will address a variety of topics in banking law and banking in general. i support the efforts of this association to organise an international conference that offers an opportunity, particularly for foreign experts, to share their experiences and those of their countries in applying various banking regulations that are either already being implemented in serbia or will soon be. for lawyers in a country that is a candidate for eu membership, it is extremely important to consider the practices of eu member states when implementing and applying eu regulations in daily operations. i also appreciate your decision to make today's conference engaging for a broad range of participants by selecting a variety of topics, including representative actions, green finance, the application of sanctions, and resolution. if i were to start with resolution, i would have much to say. the situation we found in 2012 necessitated the application of certain resolution tools, such as the purchase and assumption of assets and liabilities, nearly two years before the eu adopted the bank recovery and resolution directive. we implemented this tool in the cases of three out of the four banks whose licenses were revoked. the resolution of these three banks cost approximately eur 750 million, but the cost would have been even higher had this tool not been applied. by 2014, we were already working with the imf to incorporate this directive into the law on banks. when the war in ukraine began, we used these bank rescue mechanisms for the first time,