this is not enough. the euro area is an economic and monetary union, an “ e - m - u ”. european governments have strengthened the governance framework through the six - pack and the fiscal compact. their actions to address fiscal and economic imbalances are bearing fruit. they should further enhance their efforts to boost the single market. so the “ e ” stands for “ economic ”. the ecb has used conventional and non - conventional measures to support price stability. it is striving to restore the transmission channels of monetary policy and make sure that the impulse stemming from it is transmitted uniformly across the 17 economies of the euro area. so the “ m ” stands for “ monetary ”. but the letter “ f ” – for financial – is missing : to operate smoothly and to be more resilient to crises, the economic and monetary union has to become a true financial union. i thank you for your attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches

some policy lessons from a year of covid - 19 a speech delivered to the 2021 new zealand economics forum university of waikato on 4 march, 2021 adrian orr, governor with special thanks to my reserve bank colleague karsten chipeniuk, and many others who provided wise copy and comment. introduction tena koutou katoa, welcome everybody. thank you for the opportunity to speak today on an important and live topic ‘ the policy lessons from a year of living with covid - 19 ’. in the beginning … from late - 2019 citizens of the world have watched the covid - 19 virus evolve into a global pandemic. we observed global decision makers face what seemed an incalculable dilemma : whether to implement measures to contain the spread of the virus - potentially sacrificing lifestyles and livelihoods - or to endure the health consequences of allowing the virus to spread. this policy dilemma was quickly, and unfortunately, resolved by compounding hospitalisations, threatening the sustainability of health care systems. policy inaction was not an option and social mobility has been dramatically curtailed as a result. in aotearoa, new zealand, we have now been living in this constrained world for a year. the level of social restrictions has fluctuated with our covid alert levels – as we have seen in the events of this week – between the extremes of being one of the most mobility - constrained societies on the planet to one of the most free ( figures 1 and 2 ). as citizens, our economic fortune has been closely linked to these actions. figure 1 : cross - country lockdown comparisons source : corona virus government response tracker from oxford university ( hale et al., 2020 ) figure 2 : international arrivals at the reserve bank of new zealand, te putea matua, we were also watching this global health crisis evolve and brew into a pending economic crunch. however, we were also in the midst of preparing a broader range of monetary policy and financial stability tools to bolster the resilience of new zealand ’ s financial system. this is our kaitiaki ( guardian ) role. 1 our work agenda followed largely from lessons learnt from the global financial crisis a decade earlier. our efforts included increasing banks ’ liquidity, capital buffers, and risk management awareness and ownership. we were also developing additional monetary policy tools to be used if the official cash rate ( ocr ) reached a lower nominal bound. and, we were finalising the implementation of a superior payment and