not really in the mood for the euro either. however, information campaigns and the reality of the new currency resulted in growing support – a trend that we are already observing in lithuania. according to the latest survey data, support for the single currency increased by 18 percentage points from late last year to mid - 2014 in lithuania. in latvia, it even increased by 30 percentage points ( to 68 % ) over the same period. 1 and, even though public support for the european project as such has been on the decline across member states during the crisis, if anything, citizens in euro area countries have persistently demonstrated solid support for the common currency. in essence, those that are sceptical about the new currency have two concerns : first, they are worried that the changeover might lead to price increases ; second, they are afraid that their country might lose part of its identity. compared with other eu member states that are not yet part of the euro area, these concerns are especially high in lithuania. three - quarters of survey respondents in lithuania believe that introducing the euro will lead to increased prices. 2 i am confident we can demonstrate that such worries are unwarranted. first, the ecb will be the competent http : / / ec. europa. eu / public _ opinion / archives / eb / eb81 / eb81 _ en. htm. http : / / ec. europa. eu / public _ opinion / flash / fl _ 400 _ en. pdf. bis central bankers ’ speeches monetary policy authority once lithuania is part of the euro area. and i can assure you that we take our price stability mandate very seriously and will continue to do so. second, the lithuanian authorities can draw on the experience from 18 previous euro changeovers in designing measures to prevent unjustified price increases. i trust they will make sure that the new banknotes and coins will have the same purchasing power as the litas. what about the other main concern, a loss of national identity? designed by antanas zukauskas, the new coins resemble the litas coins, showing vytis ( “ the chaser ” ), which is an adaption of the country ’ s coat of arms. but lithuania will not just bring a national symbol to the euro area. in joining the euro area, lithuania will effectively re - gain part of the sovereignty it gave up earlier. lithuania ’ s minister for finance, rimantas sadzius, allegedly said,

union. establishing an effective communication policy was particularly important for a young institution that did not have its own track record, as was the case when the ecb started its operations in 1999. the ecb operates in a multilingual and multicultural environment. we have to address a significant number of audiences in each culture, the general public, opinion leaders, social partners, financial markets and, of course, the media as our partners who are key in the process of transmission of our messages to the audiences. these groups have different expectations with regard to the quantity and nature of our communications. for our communication policy to be effective, we have to make sure that our messages are transmitted in a consistent and timely manner throughout the euro area, and that there is an equal treatment of media across countries. in the presence of 23 official languages in the european union and 13 official languages in the euro area, it is very important to ensure that the very same message is conveyed to citizens in all countries, and that appropriate translations are made. in addition to providing these translations of the ecb ’ s official communications in all languages spoken by the euro area countries, a number of channels are used to ensure full respect of the single voice principle. the eurosystem - wide external communication activities of the national central banks are coordinated by the ecb. due consideration has been given to the different cultures of communication existing in the euro area. as expected, the very diverse european national media are playing a key role in the transmission of the information to the various audiences of the ecb. experience so far shows that the approach works well and that the media have contributed to a homogeneous understanding of the role and tasks of the ecb. 4 as the “ porte - parole ” of the ecb and its governing council, i think we have shown our capacity to communicate in unison with a high level of team spirit in interaction with a highly sophisticated and complex media network dealing with 320 million european citizens speaking 13 languages. it must be underlined that the european central bank decided from the very beginning to embark on a bold concept of transparency. on 1st january 1999, at the moment of the start of the euro, the state of the art of central banking was, not to say anything immediately after each decision on monetary policy, let observers and markets guess what had been the reasoning of the central bank and publish five or six weeks afterwards, the reasons why the decision was made in the form of “ minutes of the decision - making college ”. we decided