2012 period and the preconditions for sustainable growth are now in place. indeed, the result of these adjustments may already be seen in the 2013 economic performance, which hopefully marks a turnaround in romania ’ s economic development : rapid economic growth ( judged by the current eu standards ), sizeable adjustment in the current account deficit, historically low inflation, while keeping the fiscal deficit well below 3 %. as a result, romania is now fulfilling three out of the four maastricht criteria, namely the sustainability of the fiscal position, convergence of long - term interest rates and exchange rate stability ( although we are not technically in erm ii ). meeting the price stability criterion is probably just a matter of months, until the recent low inflation numbers feed into the 12 - month average rate used as a reference. this is especially relevant now in the context of the recent political consensus that romania should aim at adopting the euro by 2019. however, the recent economic european developments have taught us that only the fulfilment of nominal convergence criteria is not enough. the key is to pull this off consistently. setting a target date for euro adoption should act as a catalyst for sound bis central bankers ’ speeches economic policies. romania has a five year period in which to check whether the abovementioned achievements are here to stay and to demonstrate significant progress in real convergence area, where we still have a lot of catching - up to do. another lesson of the recent crisis is that a monetary union cannot function properly in the absence of a fiscal counterpart. in today ’ s europe, it is hardly imaginable that a consensus on the latter is rapidly achievable. the closest substitute – which is supposed to break the vicious circle between sovereigns and banks – is the banking union. romania is a supporter of this initiative as adhering to the banking union will strengthen financial stability and further increase confidence in the national banking sector through the harmonisation of supervisory practices and deposit guarantee schemes and avoiding regulatory arbitrage. in the long run, banking union will foster sustainable lending and economic growth ( by reducing the fragmentation of the european financial markets ). in the particular case of romania, it makes even more sense to support the project given the share of foreign capital in our banking system. furthermore, it is always preferable to have a voice in the setup of a mechanism the existence of which will affect all eu member states, especially since – irrespective of their current choice – all will eventually end up as

albanian economy and society. the response of authorities in albania, like across the world, was fast and unprecedented. the bank of albania intervened through a package of monetary and financial measures. these measures were aimed at containing the short - term impact of the pandemic and safeguarding the production capacities and the economic and financial stability of albania. these are two indispensable preconditions for the rapid, solid and long - lasting growth of the country. in this context, the bank of albania : reduced the policy rate to a historical low of 0. 5 %, in march 2020, and established the needed operational conditions to supply with sufficient liquidity to banks ; provided the necessary regulatory relief and instructed banks to help enterprises and 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches households in difficulties, through the placement of a short - term moratorium on credit instalments as well as in the form of a targeted credit restructuring ; temporary forfeited the commissions applied by banks on the use of electronic payment platforms and the fees applied on the interbank transactions costs for the payment systems aips and aech operated by the boa ; last, we suspended the distribution of profit from commercial banks for 2020 to enable the maintaining of capital adequacy of the banking system. the stimulating measures undertaken by the bank of albania were coordinated with an augmented fiscal stimulus. fiscal stimuli were in the form of tax relief and direct transfers to households and enterprises, whose income were affected by the closure of the activity and in the form of sovereign guarantees on loans to enterprises, aimed at minimising the negative effect from income and preserving the liquid position in their balance sheets. the simulating macro - economic policies helped in containing the impact of the pandemic on the real and financial sectors of albania, and succeeded in safeguarding the macroeconomic stability uncompromised. the economic contraction, fall of employment and the damage in the financial balances of enterprises resulted lower than our initial projections. the banking sector continues to be well - capitalised, liquid and profitable. the risk premia and interest rates in the financial market remain at low levels, by underpinning lending to the economy, in response to its needs for working capital, consumption and investments. in particular, non - performing loans ratio remains at a low level, notwithstanding the worsened cyclical position of the economy, by showing the benefits of the banking sector ’ s consolidation process and the advantages of the continuous improvements in the regulatory and supervisory framework. the undertaken