Speeches

Madam President, ladies and gentlemen, Madam President Lagarde, many things have certainly changed since this dossier was drawn up: Inflation can no longer be considered a transitory phenomenon and price stability is a difficult problem to solve. Taking these factors into account, banks must indeed consider climate risk as an element of assessment, but it must also be taken into account that the pandemic has slowed down the ecological transition and, consequently, all the objectives set out in the Paris Agreement should be reassessed. Ambitious objectives green They should also be read with pragmatism. High environmental standards must go hand in hand with economic sustainability. Excessive rigidity, coupled with poor realism, should not be allowed to benefit third countries at the expense of European countries. SMEs, which represent 99% of all businesses in the European Union and employ around 100 million people, need liquidity. They are the driving force behind the economic recovery. It is therefore necessary to return to an economy in which it is the productive world that is financed, not an economy where finance is made for finance. Families need jobs and only by financing the real economy can new job opportunities be created. In this regard, President Lagarde, you made extensive use of two terms at the last press conference on Thursday 3 February and also during the monetary dialogue in ECON: uncertainty and flexibility. Markets, however, perceived uncertainty about future choices and prompted an immediate rate hike. In the scenario between hawks and doves in the board At the ECB, we would like to make sure that future decisions are based on economic analysis and not on simple political processes. The ECB will be at a crossroads in the coming months and we hope that you, President, are on the right track.