john iannis mourmouras : the pandemic crisis as a challenge greece the day after opening speech by professor john iannis mourmouras, senior deputy governor of the bank of greece, at the imn's greek banking & npl management virtual event, 9 september 2020. * * * good afternoon everybody in athens and europe, good morning to new york, let me first thank the imn, especially chris and my friend jade for the kind invitation to offer a few opening remarks at today ’ s important webinar on “ greek banking & npl management ”. i wish to all of you to be healthy and stay safe and next year we all get together in athens at the imn ’ s real event, and not like this year ’ s virtual event. although the corona shock hit all countries in the world, both in terms of public health and national economy, its effects are asymmetric on both frontiers. this is because, on the one hand, the speed of governments ’ responses in flattening the pandemic curve differed among countries and, on the other hand, because of different initial conditions and timing of the appropriate monetary - fiscal policy mix. in europe, southern countries have been hit harder than northern ones, both in terms of the brunt of the disease and the economic recession. in my country, measures to combat the pandemic were taken by the government in a timely fashion and the citizens exhibited selfdiscipline and respected the public addresses of the greek prime minister kyriakos mitsotakis ; the total number of reported cases was equally low. greece is among the five best performers in the eu in terms of coronavirus deaths per million. the latest forecasts with regards to the greek economic outlook this year is for a recession around 7 - 8 % and for next year a recovery of around 3 - 4 %, namely not a v - recovery, similar to the rest of the eurozone. looking ahead, the economy will benefit in the coming years mainly from two drivers : a ) the catching up effect, which will be bigger as a result of a combination of the mou and pandemic years and b ) from the government ’ s reforms agenda and fdi. more on the positive side, last week greece held a successful bond auction, it ’ s fourth in 2020, to raise €2. 5 billion and boost state cash reserves. the public debt management agency said the sale was 7, 6 times overs

axel a weber : the global economic crisis and the challenges it poses introductory remarks by professor axel a weber, president of the deutsche bundesbank, at the morning plenary session " the global economic crisis " of the israeli presidential conference 2009, jerusalem, 22 october 2009. * * * introduction ladies and gentlemen, mr chairman thank you for the opportunity to speak to you here on the global economic crisis and the challenges it poses. these issues can be discussed from very different angles, many of which are equally interesting. however, my perspective is that of a central banker within the eurosystem and i will therefore focus on the macroeconomic dimension of the two main topics raised in the announcement to this plenary session. they are, broadly speaking, a stock - take of the economic environment, including the short - term outlook, and the long - term implications of the crisis for economic policy and the science of economics. however, i would like to add another point which i regard as a linchpin between these two areas. it is the question of how to get from the state we are currently in to a hopefully more stable equilibrium, in which the lessons from the crisis have been learnt. the issues that need to be discussed in this third, medium - term field are, in particular, exit strategies for the various policy measures taken during the crisis. in my view, the way we tackle these challenges in monetary policy, fiscal policy and at the level of the imf will be at least as important for future growth as the changes in the architecture of the financial system, adjustments to monetary policy or improvements in economic theory. but let me start with the state of the world economy. where does the global economy stand? the financial crisis caused very serious disruptions on the financial markets after the collapse of lehman brothers, and only far - reaching interventions by governments and central banks worldwide prevented a collapse of the whole financial system. despite this coordinated action, we entered the deepest global recession since the second world war. however, after an economically devastating winter half year, we have seen a remarkable stabilisation around the world in recent months. in the euro zone, the decline in gdp almost came to a standstill in the second quarter, and a slight increase quarter - on - quarter is likely in the third quarter. germany even delivered a positive surprise in the second quarter, when gdp grew by 0. 3 % on the quarter ; the outlook for the third quarter is even better given a rebound in industrial activity and the