or to stand in quiet contemplation in front of a caravaggio painting at the stadel. 4. turning to the ecb cultural days : how did the idea come about and what is the connection between culture and central banking? i have always felt that there is a profound link between the european union and its cultural identity. i trust this belief is widely shared by ecb staff and our executive board, governing council and general council. when i became president of the ecb, i was very happy to see that this initiative had already been launched by my predecessor, wim duisenberg. i was determined to give it renewed impetus. the event can be seen from three different angles. from the perspective of the ecb ’ s staff and the 27 national central banks of the european system of central banks, it is a way of celebrating all the national cultures and being proud of them. for frankfurt and the rhinemain region as a whole, it is a way of appealing to a large, cosmopolitan audience. for europe as a whole, it is an occasion to celebrate cultural unity and diversity under the auspices of one of its major institutions, the ecb. i should mention that the ecb and the national central bank co - organising the cultural days – this year banca nationala a romaniei – benefit from the remarkable support of the city of frankfurt and other active sponsors, whom i would like to thank for their contributions.

area, monetary policy normalisation is taking place in challenging economic circumstances. risk - free interest rates are being raised globally in an environment characterised by a series of large adverse supply shocks that weaken growth and investment and that may weigh on the productive capacity of the euro area economy. risks of a destabilisation of inflation expectations substantially deteriorate the trade - off facing monetary policy. over recent days, concerns about the extent of monetary policy tightening needed to restore price stability have grown stronger. the increase in sovereign risk premia has accelerated, liquidity conditions have become more challenging, and daily changes in bond yields have increased ( slide 10 ). the spread of the euro area gdp - weighted yield over the equivalent overnight indexed swap ( ois ) rate, which is a useful summary measure to assess the policy transmission, has also moved up, and sovereign yields stand notably above their 2020 lows ( slide 11 ). as a result, some borrowers have seen significantly larger changes in financing conditions than others since the start of the year. such changes in financing conditions may constitute an impairment in the transmission of monetary policy that requires close monitoring. what is important in this environment is that investors have a clear understanding that monetary policy can and should respond to a disorderly repricing of risk premia that impairs the transmission of monetary policy and poses a threat to price stability. in december of last year, we made clear that we would not tolerate price adjustments that would undermine the transmission of our monetary policy. in our monetary policy statement, we declared that, within our mandate, under stressed conditions, flexibility will remain an element of monetary policy whenever threats to monetary policy transmission jeopardise the attainment of price stability. this commitment can be put into practice within a very short period of time if we conclude that policy transmission is at risk. in that case, reinvestments from maturing securities under the pepp can be adjusted flexibly across time, asset classes and jurisdictions. while the flexible allocation of pepp reinvestments is one way to address fragmentation, our commitment is stronger than any specific instrument. our commitment to the euro is our antifragmentation tool. this commitment has no limits. and our track record of stepping in when needed backs up this commitment. how we ultimately react to risks of fragmentation will firmly depend on the situation we are facing. we have shown in the past that we can adapt flexibly and quickly to the specific circumstances. while the omt required strict conditional