peter praet : improving the functioning of economic and monetary union - lessons and challenges for economic policies keynote dinner speech by mr peter praet, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the nabe ( national association for business economics ) international symposium " global recovery : the good, the bad and the ugly ", madrid, 16 april 2018. * * * the ongoing economic expansion shows that our monetary policy has been effective in laying the groundwork for a return of inflation to a rate below, but close to, 2 % over the medium term. 1 euro area real gdp has expanded for 19 consecutive quarters. the latest economic data and survey results point towards some moderation of late, following several quarters of very strong growth inflation developments, however, remain subdued, and we have not yet met the governing council ’ s three criteria – convergence, confidence and resilience – for a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation, which is our stated condition for ceasing our net asset purchases. overall, an ample degree of monetary stimulus remains necessary for underlying inflation pressures to continue to build up and support headline inflation developments over the medium term. hence, we must be patient, persistent and prudent with our policy. 1 / 17 bis central bankers'speeches our monetary policy has effectively contributed to euro area macroeconomic adjustment through the staunch pursuit of our price stability mandate. monetary policy, however, is only one side of the story. price stability is a necessary, but not a sufficient condition for sustained and balanced growth in europe. the run - up to the crisis proved that macroeconomic imbalances can grow amid price stability ( see figure 1 and 2 ), highlighting the need to keep economic policy high on europe ’ s agenda. tonight i would like to concentrate on economic policies and their essential role in ensuring a smooth functioning of economic and monetary union ( emu ). i will look back at the experience of the euro area since 1999 and illustrate the emergence of macroeconomic imbalances by focusing on three countries : spain, germany and france. the crisis acted as a litmus test for europe ’ s institutional framework, revealing the need for a number of institutional reforms. lessons have been learned and significant progress towards strengthening emu has been achieved, including elevating the responsibility of banking supervision from national to the european level, the creation of the european stability mechanism as a permanent crisis management institution, and improvements in the eu surveillance framework for economic policies. 2 progress towards completing the

speech closing gaps to bend the trend : embedding the flow of finance in the transition speech by frank elderson, member of the executive board of the ecb and vice - chair of the supervisory board of the ecb, state of the union conference organised by the european university institute florence, 5 may 2023 many thanks for inviting me to address this conference along with so many esteemed speakers. as the cradle of the renaissance, florence has a long history of attracting people from different disciplines across europe. the most gifted individuals in the fields of art, science, politics and finance have long come to this city to make a difference, together unleashing creative forces of a magnitude greater than the sum of their already impressive individual contributions. just as we have come to palazzo vecchio today to unlock the creativity required to address the multidimensional challenges that are affecting the state of the european union. my contribution will focus on the most pressing challenge requiring urgent action : the ongoing climate and environmental crises. the problem is clear. the state of the eu is not yet on a transition path that is aligned with the goals of the paris agreement – to pursue efforts to limit global warming to 1. 5 degrees celsius above pre - industrial levels, and in any case well below 2 degrees. linear trend extrapolation of global warming puts us going beyond 1. 5 degrees in march 2035. [ 1 ] mind you, when country delegates negotiated the paris agreement in december 2015, the trend suggested this level would not be breached until march 2045. in other words, on top of the seven - plus years that have passed since the paris agreement, we have lost another ten. using a more sophisticated approach, the climate action tracker – which was developed by a consortium of climate research organisations – when compiled in november 2022 assessed that the policies and actions taken by the eu were almost sufficient to be consistent with limiting global warming to 2 degrees celsius. the picture improves if the tracker incorporates policy commitments made but not yet implemented. however, even then it is still not consistent with limiting global warming to 1. 5 degrees celsius. for some existing commitments, the european council recently endorsed several measures proposed by the european commission. nonetheless, more specific commitments are clearly required and all promises need to be kept. importantly, under its fit - for - 55 strategy, the eu is committed to lowering carbon emissions by at least 55 % by 2030. moreover, against the backdrop of russia ’ s