national statistical offices altered their calendar of publication and data dissemination ; and very importantly 4 ) many offices were adapting 1 / 3 bis - central bankers'speeches and responding to new data needs by changing collection modes, using alternative data sources, adding covid related questions, as well as reducing content and samples of surveys. these challenges have been equally relevant for central banks, being one of the pillars of the statistical production systems. we as a central bank also vested enormous efforts making many adjustments in data collection, production and communication process that helped us smoothing the pandemics effect on the production and dissemination of statistics. the pandemic in the initial phase tested the resilience of the statistical system, i. e., the ability to continue with timely supply of statistical data. but it also created demand pressures for new data that was not produced by the official statistics. data on the epidemiological curve became highly needed as they are leading indicator on how the economy will evolve and how economic and social policies should be calibrated. at the same time, there has been growing demand for real - time high - frequency data on the economy, as many of the historical systematic linkages that policy decisions were based on were broken. for instance, we have been intensively using google mobility data during the lockdowns to assess the behaviour of consumers. we have also leveraged on the private sector data for payment card transactions, as an indicator to assess the personal consumption dynamics and its structure. although highly useful, the abundance of data also poses a challenge for statisticians, as accentuated by the health crisis. as we go further down the road, the need for quick and granular data, for example on the changes of the economic behaviour of the agents, the longer term scarring to the economy, or the impact of the policy actions on economy will be a " must ". but data from different decentralised sources are not structured, there is a lack of transparency in methodology, no representativeness, and no use of international standards, concepts and semantics. hence, there is a need to streamline the wealth of information to structured, understandable, shareable and most of all, reliable data of the future. the latter is prerequisite to preclude devaluation of the data, and statistics plays a critical role in preserving the value of data. in the new era when we have open access to multiple sources of information, it is not enough official statistics to be disse

else it holds that the data say nothing and 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches interpretation holds sway. so how about this? for years before and after introducing the euro, the slovak economy has constantly been catching up with the wealthier countries, including us. we, meanwhile, are constantly catching up with the countries to our west. economics rather relies on the poorer catching up with the wealthier. and the richer a country is, the harder it is to catch up. looking at the numbers, slovakia is still 10 % behind the czech republic in terms of economic output and above it in terms of the price level. it ’ s a poorer and more expensive country. yet tens of thousands of slovaks still travel from this euro paradise to the czech republic to work and study. an equal but opposite flow is nowhere to be seen. 7. the prague - copenhagen connection : i have to add with some bitterness that many in the czech republic like having their own currency but not necessarily their own monetary policy. this magical contradiction can be seen in the pleiad of ostensibly conservative political opponents of the euro in the revitalised euro debate. in one breath they say that we should not adopt the euro – so that we can keep our own currency and hence retain the ability “ to weaken the koruna in bad times ” – and then criticise the czech national bank for doing exactly that in the bad times of 2013. they then happily add that greece would have benefited from having its own currency and that germany is profiting from the euro being weaker than the deutschmark would have been. the same, however, doesn ’ t go for the czech republic after 2013. these endearing inconsistencies are present throughout the population. here again, however, the eurozone and its satellites offer parallels. the danes have a fixed exchange rate against the euro ( and previously had a fixed rate against the mark ) and thus in effect “ buy in ” monetary policy from frankfurt. they have their own notes and coins but not their own monetary policy. note this fine “ scandinavian paradox ” : the danes have an opt - out from the euro following their 2000 referendum, yet they do not make their own monetary policy, nor did they before the euro was created, whereas the swedes do not have an opt - out ( although they have been trying not to fulfil the criteria and not to join ever since rejecting the euro in their 2003 referendum ), yet they pursue autonomous monetary policy. i sometimes