message conveyed by robert schuman exactly 52 years ago today, in his famous declaration that led to the creation of the european coal and steel community and that historians generally recognise as the starting point of the process of european integration. l'europe – these are the words of schuman – ne se fera pas d'un coup, ni dans une construction d'ensemble. elle se fera par des realisations concretes, creant d'abord une solidarite de fait. europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. it will be built through concrete achievements, which create a de facto solidarity. how the euro contributes to this solidarity – perhaps more than any other achievement so far – is what i'd like to reflect on first of all. a social contract what is money? economists know that money is defined by the functions it performs, as a means of exchange, a unit of account and a store of value. but, just as importantly, money is also defined by the community for whom it performs these functions. because it is an economic instrument for each of its users, it is also a political and cultural bond between them. consider this simple fact : we engage in an exchange of goods and services everyday by using money as the means of exchange ; and we offer our labour in exchange for money, which, in itself, has no value. we only do this because we believe that we will, in turn, be able to exchange that money for more goods or services. this fact tells us much about the confidence that we place in money itself. and it tells us much more about the confidence that we place in each other. hence, money is, in essence, a social contract. the euro, probably more than any other currency, represents the mutual confidence at the heart of our community. it is the first currency that has not only severed its link to gold, but also its link to the nation - state. it is not backed by the durability of the metal or by the authority of the state. indeed, what sir thomas more said of gold five hundred years ago – that it was made for men and that it had its value by them – applies very well to the euro. every currency is a symbol of the community it serves. it is a symbol of the society as a whole, but also represents the political and cultural bonds between the members of that society. surely this uniting power must have been

low rates on the volume and riskiness of bank loans. but over time, falling rates will squeeze bank interest margins. in the longer run, there are also risks to financial stability if low interest rates result in asset price bubbles, which are vulnerable to sharp reverses once interest rates rise. similarly, if banks “ search for yield ” by increasing lending to lower quality borrowers or if they roll over non profitable, “ zombie ” loans to ailing companies, there may well be a higher aggregate default risk. ecb staff estimates suggest that recent monetary policy actions in the euro area have so far been net positive for bank profitability, relative to a scenario of no policy action, 7 and we don ’ t see today asset price bubbles which would threaten the euro area ’ s financial stability. but if rates are low for too long, the negative effects may well dominate and impair the effectiveness of our measures. of course, low interest rates are not the only factor affecting bank profitability in the euro area. europe as a whole is overbanked, and a number of jurisdictions have suffered from low profitability and high cost - to - income ratios for several years. with interest rates likely to remain low for the foreseeable future, even once monetary policy normalises, banks will have to revisit their business models to ensure continued profitability over the medium term. the monetary policy reaction faced with activity below potential and inflation below its objective, the ecb has sustained accommodative monetary policy since the onset of the crisis. we have responded to the fall in equilibrium rates and the negative output gap by cutting our main refinancing rate to zero and our deposit rate into negative territory. our targeted long - term refinancing operations have encouraged lending by banks and helped to mend the transmission mechanism. more recently, our asset purchase programme ( app ) has sought to influence a broader range of interest rates. this recognises that there is in fact not just one equilibrium rate, but a constellation of rates across a range of maturities and credit conditions that are important for the borrowing decisions of firms and households. it is clear that the accommodative monetary stance is having the desired effect in the euro area. gdp growth continues, albeit still at a sluggish pace. according to the european commission ’ s most recent estimates, the negative output gap has more than halved since 2014, from – 2. 5 % to 4 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches