current president was born and where the informal summit of heads of state or government of the european union will take place in may. 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches on a lighter note, children in romania enjoy playing with lego, denmark ’ s registered trademark. as regards finland, mika waltari ’ s books have consistently been bestsellers in romanian bookshops and angry birds ranks as one of the most popular mobile apps among young romanians. as surprising as it may seem, there is a link with sweden as well. in the early 18th century, king charles xii, after the battle of poltava, moved southwards to romanian lands, turned into an entrepreneur and built the coltea tower, the tallest building in bucharest at the time, which stood very close to the current headquarters of the national bank of romania. the importance of austria and of its capital city, vienna, for romania is unquestionable. it should be pointed out that the austrian influence is not confined to transylvania. to give you just one example of a romanian landmark figure who refined his personality in vienna, our national poet mihai eminescu studied a few years in this prestigious academic hub. i cannot conclude without mentioning that romania is inhabited by diverse minorities belonging to nations in the region, namely, hungarians, czechs, poles, slovaks, with whom we have so many things in common that it would take me too long to talk about. and if i add that beautiful and sunny malta became an increasingly popular holiday destination among romanian tourists, i think i have touched on each of the 27 current eu member states besides romania. let me conclude by saying that romania is fully committed to the united europe and to european values, but this is nothing new and is also the case with the other member states. the need for unity of europe is better perceived from its eastern border, on the black sea coast, as we are so close to crimea. and i want to make a call for unity in europe and to stress that it is us who, through our decisions, shape its future. as abraham lincoln once said, “ the best way to predict your future is to create it ”. with this in mind, allow me to make a toast for a strong and united europe. thank you for your attention! 3 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches

sum of the solutions adopted for those crises ”. time has proved him right and i trust his words will always remain true. besides, we need to value that europe is united in diversity. diversity is an outstanding asset for europe, and it should not be regarded as a permanent liability. in trying times it is essential to capitalise on what unites us. and many things already created bridges between us well before the creation of the eu. we have always been diverse, yet connected. i recall how amazed i was when, during my first visit to portugal, two decades ago, i realised that in two countries located at the two ends of the european union – portugal and romania ( which were also the extremities of the roman empire ) – a saying about the bare necessities of life sounds almost the same in the two languages. the sentence that really shocked me was the following : “ in this house with a litre of wine and a kilo of beef, one cannot be dying of hunger or thirst ”. this is not an exception, though. in spanish and italian, a lot of words are close to the 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches romanian ones. a proof in this respect is that many romanians have chosen to work or to live in those countries as they find it easy to adapt to the local culture and language. it ’ s like a home away from home. in the very heart of rome, anybody can see trajan ’ s column, the monument commissioned by the roman emperor trajan, born in spain. it was completed in the year 113 ad and features a remarkable spiralling, sculpted bas - relief depicting the wars between the dacians and the romans. trajan solved a budgetary crisis by crossing the danube and entering transylvania – the land beyond the forests in latin ( trans silvae ) – to seize the gold of the dacians. i wouldn ’ t say this would qualify as model behaviour nowadays. however, a good thing came out of this : the romanian people is virtually the result of a fiscal and monetary decision. this explains the linguistic and historical similarities that stem from our common latin roots. nevertheless, i have discovered similar words with other languages as well. for example, in slovenian and croatian, a regional ruler used to be called a ban, which was also the case in parts of romania. since these rulers had the right to mint coins, money was and still is called bani in romanian. looking now at the baltic countries