##cius quote : “ the man who asks a question is a fool for a minute, the man who does not ask is a fool for life ”. that is why we keep asking. 1 see bis : red book statistics for cpmi countries. 2 see girocard. eu : figures for the first half of 2020. 3 see bis wp 880 : rise of the central bank digital currencies, august 2020. 4 ecb ( 2020 ) : report on a digital euro, frankfurt am main, october 2020. 5 see, for example, bank of thailand / hkma : inthanon - lionrock and mas : project ubin, phase 4 ( cross - border payment versus payment ). 6 see fsb : enhancing cross - border payments : stage 3 roadmap ( october 2020 ). 5 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches

the economy did not improve the situation. and when, in the spring of 2010, sovereign risk came to the fore, it turned into a major downside risk for recovery in bis central bankers ’ speeches europe. within a short period of time, fiscal problems in greece and other member states turned into an imminent danger to the stability of the financial system and the monetary union as a whole. thus, european institutions decided to implement far - reaching fiscal measures to support the countries in question. these measures were justifiable given the risks associated with inaction. nevertheless, they still placed a serious strain on the foundations of the monetary union. consequently, we now have to strengthen these foundations again and create an institutional framework that supports a stable monetary union. 4. the challenge of creating an adequate institutional framework as i have just pointed out, the crisis revealed two basic problems within the european monetary union : macroeconomic imbalances and excessive public deficits. both problems have their roots within the individual member states. consequently, it is first and foremost the responsibility of national governments to act by consolidating their budgets swiftly and ambitiously and by implementing comprehensive structural reforms. nevertheless, reforms also have to be undertaken at the level of the monetary union. as a first step, the institutional framework has to be enhanced to prevent the occurrence of harmful macroeconomic imbalances or excessive public deficits. this requires a twofold approach : first, strengthening the sgp to guarantee sustainable public finances, and, second, implementing macroeconomic surveillance to detect structural developments within member states that might be harmful for the rest of the monetary union. furthermore, as it will never be possible to prevent crises entirely, a third element should be a mechanism to solve potential crises in an orderly fashion – but without thwarting the stability - enhancing incentives set by the sgp and the surveillance mechanism. let us now take a quick look at how far we have come in turning this approach into reality. given its track record before the crisis, it can no longer be denied that there is an urgent need to strengthen the sgp : more emphasis should be given to the debt criterion, while earlier and more consistent sanctions have to be placed on any breach of the rules. the reform measures that have been agreed so far do indeed entail a number of improvements. however, the measures lack the ambition to fully redress past failings and to bring about a fundamental improvement. the major shortcoming of the envisaged reform is that relevant decisions on sanctions