Good morning everyone. You're very welcome to this morning's webinar discussion on the Europe and the global economy as part of the IIEA's 30th anniversary celebrations. My name is Frances Ruan and I'm delighted to be chairing this session this morning with two very distinguished speakers, Pasco Donohue, Ireland's Minister for Finance and President of the Eurogroup, and Professor Philip Lane, who's a member of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank and its chief economist. They're together in the same picture. They're joining us from the Irish Embassy in Lisbon, where they're there for an in-person meeting of this in-person Eurogroup summit, which was scheduled since this date was confirmed. So in this world of webinars, it's possible to continue with the plan we have despite a change of schedule for them, and obviously there's some silver linings in the world of pandemics and what we've learned how to deal with distance. I'll just briefly outline the format for this morning's session. I'm beginning by putting an opening question to each of the speakers, and they'll have approximately five minutes or so to share their responses on that. I'll pick up from that discussion at uncertain points, and we'll explore them a little bit further. So please send in your questions throughout the session as they occur to you, and we'll introduce them as we go along. We'll have about 20 to 25 minutes or so at the end dedicated to a just audience discussion. So if you have a question submitted in writing under the Zoom's Q&A function, and we'll ask that you identify yourself and your organization if there's one with which they're associated, and to try to keep in mind to keep the questions as always for the IAEA as brief as possible so that we can deal with as many questions as possible. And a reminder that the discussion today is fully on the record so it's not chess and house rules, so just note that. And if you want to get involved in the discussion on Twitter, we encourage you to use the hashtag IAEA 30. So let me briefly introduce our speakers who are known to most of you, but in this globalized world, not to all of you. I'm Pascal Dunhu TD is Minister for Finance of Ireland, a position he's held since June 2020, and he's currently president of the Eurogroup. Minister Dunhu served as Minister for Finance and Public Expenditure and Reform for 2016 to 2020. And before that he was Minister for Transport Tourism and Sport, and Minister of State for European Affairs. He served as TD for Dublin Central in February 2011, and prior to that he was a member of Shanah Varen from 2007 to 2011. So Philip Lane has been chief economist and member of the European, of the Executive Board of the European Central Bank since June 2019. In his appointment, he was governor of the Central Bank of Ireland from 2015 to 2019. He served as weighty professor of political economy at Trinity College Dublin in 2012 to 2019, and I'd lectured at the university from 1997. He received his PhD in economics from Harvard University in 1995, and was assistant professor of economics and international affairs at Columbia University between 1995 and 1997. So for those of you who didn't know them beforehand. These are the key things that you'd be interested to hear about them. So before to turn to the questions, I would like at this moment just to thank the IAEA for inviting me to be here this morning giving me the opportunity to be in the company of two former students of the Department of Economics of Trinity College, and for me who made such significant contributions both to Ireland and to the European Union, and they continue to do so. So my opening question and let me put this first to the, to the minister. It's an easy one your starter pretend as a war. And what would you see is the three key milestones in the development of the European economy over the last 30 years since the IAEA was established. Good morning Francis and thank you very much for the opportunity to participate in this seminar. I just want to acknowledge the 30 years of fantastic contribution that the IAEA has made to debate about Europe and to debate indeed about Ireland's place in the world. And of course, and an event like this, I'm always very conscious of the contribution that Brendan Halligan made through the IAEA and beyond to our country, and to our role within Europe and indeed to our support for Europe. It was a very recent event and indeed celebration of his life that you organized with the essay competition. I thought it was a very fitting recognition of Brendan's contribution to our civic and public life. So, in terms of the key economic moments in the recent history of the European Union, I guess I'd have to pick out three different phases of our economic integration and economic development. The first one will be the introduction of the Euro itself. As many of you know, we are marking and approaching the anniversary of the introduction of the Euro as a physical currency later on in the year. But the introduction of the Euro, while of course it was a profoundly and deeply significant economic event, it was also a profoundly important political moment because it signaled the desire of all of many members of the European project to use our political interdependence, our shared values to create a further phase of deeper economic interdependence for the benefit of all. And I can remember the moment I saw my first Euro, and it has had such a profound effect, not only on our economic development in Ireland and that of the European Union, but also on our political development. The second moment was and remains a profound moment in the history of the European project. The second moment that I would pick would be far more difficult moments around the global financial crisis from 2007 onwards that underscored to many of us, particularly that it's important as the architecture of the Euro was. It was an architecture that was essentially incomplete and some key pillars, some really important foundations of that architecture remained to be built. And we learned the difficulty involved in that, but we also learned that when that architecture was complete, or was built further I should say rather than complete, and moments of great challenge it made a profound difference to our ability to overcome some of the challenges of that era. And that brings me up to more recent moments, the more recent moments of the pandemic, and those moments of the pandemic demonstrated many things, including the essential, profound role of our central bank in the ECB, the work of Professor Lane and his colleagues in the European Council, but it also demonstrated I believe two qualities. The first quality was the importance of the architecture that we have worked hard to develop further during global financial crisis and continue with its aftermath. That architecture ended up being used in a fundamentally different way to combat a pandemic. And it also demonstrated something very political. It demonstrated our willingness to stand together to realize that interdependence has to be a source of strength and to realize that if we were combating a disease that used interdependence to travel and use contact to harm. We would have to use our interdependence as a source of resilience. And there was a deep political unity to do that. Unity isn't always easily achieved. It can sometimes look difficult in the spotlight of media and political focus. But I think today that unity was found. And as I think we'll touch on in other moments in our debate, that unity will yet play an essential role in a rebound and then recovery that we need to nurture. So, three quick moments for me, Frances. And, you know, I've always learned that when somebody pitches an easy question to me, it's frequently anything but, but I guess it's a good way of framing the early part of our discussion. Thank you very much. So Philip, you can come in with the same three or three different ones. I know you articulate them differently anyway. Well, I mean, in the context of, of course, I'm going to live myself to the kind of economic and financial dimensions of integration. And before I answer, I would also join in congratulating the Institute on 30 years. And I would note and it's in line with some of the, I think the narrative of this, of this event. It is so important to to expand the scope of the Institute to be the Institute for International and European Affairs. Because of course, the role of Europe and the role of whether it's monetary union or all the other dimensions of integration is not just to kind of address or solve within Europe coordination issues. It's to make sure that Europe is set up to deal with with global global trends global shocks of which the pandemic is the most recent. So, I mean, I broadly have similar time periods in mind. When I was looking back and I'm no historian. When I try to get okay what exactly when exactly was the key date in terms of the formation of the euro. Now, I agree with the minister. It is important because for many people it is a physical reality of notes and coins really brought us home. And one key European Council was at Madrid in December 1995, when I think the January 199 date is locked in. And so so that was, if you like, but those involved and of course many in the audience and sure at the amount of preparation needed to launch a monthly union. There was a predecessor European Monterey Institute with some key Irish officials by the way, in word from, you know, date zero before the euro was launched. And just to say the minister was referencing there about the kind of incomplete architecture. A lot of choices would have been made in the mid 1990s. And in fact a bit earlier, in terms of what what was necessary and what could that could wait in terms of the formation of a module. And in terms of thinking about the broad period of the global financial crisis and then the European Southern debt crisis. I'm going to maybe in a particular way focus on July 2012. Which of course it is when Mario Draghi made or whatever it takes feet. But what I want to emphasize with that is battle should not be interpreted as a standalone event, because a lot of independent elements were necessary in order for the East to understand that role. It was important that the European stability mechanism was set up. It was important that we had a fiscal compact. It was important that the progress had also been made, for example, in terms of the launch in a banking union. So the role of central bank needs always be understood in the wider context of the different elements of the European institutional framework. And that brings me to the third element which relates to pandemic, which is basically the agreement by next generation EU. So there should be no doubt in terms of the resilience of the area, the, you know, I think success so far in making sure that the financial aspects of the pandemic have been handled. It is the fact that Europe did fundamentally agree. And many people around the world were asking the question, you know, will Europe stand together and having next generation EU as one component in the response has been so important. And if you like the work the job of the central bank can can never be taken in isolation. It's so important that these other elements have been in place. So if you like on all of those fronts. And that's what I want to emphasize. It's, we have to think about the whole system together. And those to me were were three elements where you can zero in on a particular announcement or particular speech. But it's all the interlocking parts are so important for for the resilience of your area. So just coming to make that one, one item and you asked for three of course, there was a contender for fourth, fifth and sixth place. As was one, I'd like to maybe both to comment on and partly linking back to what the minister said about seeing interdependence as a strength, rather than a weakness I think that's a really very fundamental difference about what it feels like at the moment. It's very much being more in that strength whereas during the financial crisis it didn't feel that that interdependence and obviously Brexit is an example where interdependence was being painted as in fact a negative rather than a positive I think in some of the discussion in the public domain. I wonder if you comment at all on what you might see is the significance of the EU enlargement into the East, in terms of what the European Union is going to look like in the period ahead, because that in a sense is part of an interdependence within Europe that was been created. Francis, do you want me to. So, indeed, the enlargement, the enlargement that has taken place and the prospects that to grow further have made a profound difference to the nature of the euro and the form of the economic integration that we have. So, if I look at the current status of the euro and the membership of so many of our colleagues so back it's so really a little way, it's not only if I look at the contribution they make within Europe and within the echo thing. The contribution they make about an appreciation of the digital dimension of financial services. Some of the debates that are now beginning in relation to the very early phase of the exploratory and technical work that Professor Lane and his colleagues have underway regarding the digital future of the euro and the appreciation that they have of the political dimension of the euro and how interdependence and connectivity is a source of strength is a very important dimension of the contributions that they regularly make. And as I look at the phase beyond that the progress that we are making with our friends and partners in Croatia and in Bulgaria and underscores how the euro is perceived elsewhere. And at moments of difficulty, and we have seen this many times only too recently, when reaching agreement within the European Union and indeed within the euro area so intensely hard, it needs to be remembered that one of the reasons why that our agreement, reaching agreement on markets can be so hard, is it leads to resilience and the decisions that are made. And the decisions, the changes that we make nearly always, if not always outlast the crisis period within which those decisions are reached, and the difficulty of decision making leads to a resilience of decision. And those who are outside the euro, but inside the European Union, that is a real source of strength, and it's a strength that they want to share. And you can see that in two different phases Francis, you can see the number of our colleagues that are not in the euro area, but are very vested in discussions regarding the future of banking union, because they see the externalities of banking union as something that they want to influence. And indeed, some of them, many of them in fact, would see banking union which has such a strong euro dimension as something that they still want to participate in, even if they remain as a non euro partners. And beyond that, our colleagues in Bulgaria and Croatia are working so hard to fulfill the criteria that are being set for ultimate membership. And that isn't just for economic reasons, even though the economic reasons are so essential to their So this is a project which for me, the resilience of which has yet been underpinned, yet been underestimated, and the fact that we again have two friends, partners and neighbours who want to be part of that project demonstrates not only its economic resilience, but also its political resilience. Philip, would you like to come in on that. Yes. So, let me have a size, maybe two points. One is, of course, the membership the machine has expanded a lot from the original 11 members. And from the point of view of a small country, whether it's the global financial crisis or the pandemic, really underlines the value, the kind of safe harbor effect of being in a module union. We all member countries can raise funding, can operate, make transactions in euro. So cross border activity isn't basically the shared currency. And I think we have a lot of counter examples of small countries outside of that, which in relation to these large global shocks, it's difficult to run a small currency. Now, the other point I would make is, even for those who have not joined. And by the way, it's not just EU members, but the wider set of European countries is there is a positive spillover from the euro. For example, the ECB over the last year has provided the option of swap lines and repo lines with a range of neighbouring countries. And because again, the alternative where of, you know, using the dollar for cross border transactions, it makes sense that the euro is an important regional currency, not just for the euro area, but for the wider neighbourhood of Europe. And so, no matter which country you think about, the euro does have this kind of, I think, profound and positive impact on the wider European system. And it just goes back to this basic point and the way the euro works is it's shared decision making. I mean, the government council has represented small member countries. Everyone is there as an individual. We make decisions by consensus. And so it's kind of a remarkable, if you like, setup to have that amount of shared decision making. And if I could just emphasise that point, and it's such a powerful point made by the professor there, because again, it is the same in our euro group, and indeed in our ecofin deliberations. And of course, you know, I do want to acknowledge that very large economies, the larger members of of euro group and indeed decofin, and, you know, when their views are made clear. Of course, they do carry a particular weight given their scale. But as against us, in order to reach really important decisions, consensus is needed. And it is for me, the most powerful demonstration possible of the difference between sovereignty and theory and sovereignty and practice. And that was demonstrated for me so vividly. In the many meetings we had of both euro group and decofin in the darkest days of the pandemic, where again Phillips point, Ireland's ability to respond back to that shock was amplified beyond scale. By the fact that we were considering how to respond back and then using common economic instruments with other members of a shared currency.  I think there's, there's, there'll be continuing work as far as I can see to be done in that narrative being understood very widely by all the citizens of the union who are involved in this because I think it often gets lost. And there's a sense in which loss of sovereignty, as opposed to the positivity of independent interdependence has been very corrupted, I think potentially in minds of a lot of people in trying to understand how we how we are going forward. I take, you talked about in reference to a number of occasions the pandemic and I think it is, you know, for us today it's obviously the big event, but it's also been a big event from a European perspective. And I suppose my question here really is from where to have you stand, what major lessons from handling 2008 financial crisis have informed what has happened so much seems to be from the outside, much better in handling COVID-19 and maybe Phillip you'd start on on that question. I mean, it's definitely true that having, if you like the experience of having having to manage a crisis, even if the crisis was fundamentally different in nature, and definitely meant that the kind of playbook existed. And there was a playbook about what a central bank needs to do. Now, at some level, this is nothing particularly Euro specific about this because by and large central banks everywhere had very similar response, which is very important when the market had to absorb this really rather than what we used last March, and there's an important impairment to stabilize markets very quickly. And that required very large expansion of our balance sheets, whether true asset purchases, and again not not just of sovereign but also a lot of money per corporate farms to stabilize the money markets, a lot of liquidity to banks. One of the remarkable phases of this and the biggest contrast with O8 is credit has been growing quite strongly in this crisis. There's been no credit crunch, there's been no credit contraction, and it's so important when so many firms needed liquidity given the sudden loss of revenue, that it's very important that that banking sector dimension was addressed. And then the third element was, you know, we've lived through this huge drop in economic activity, and that was clear risks to price stability. So it's very important to essentially maintain and continue to maintain an accommodative monetary policy stance. Now I would say, if you think about the world today versus the world 13 or 14 years ago, a fundamental pervasive topic, which runs through everything, which is essentially the global level of interest rates these days is very low. Going into O8, interest rates were still roughly high. They were still, you know, truth, pretty high oil price mid 2000s and so on. Inflation was not especially low. So the kind of level of interest rates, which matters for sovereigns and matters for a debt of households and matters for corporates, if like the global anchor for interest rates these days is a lot lower. And that really does change the picture. So, you know, the conjecture of what a pandemic would have looked like if it happened in O8 is an entirely different question. So when we compared at two periods, of course you can compare the different elements of the crisis dynamics, but this basic fundamental global point is pervades everything. And, you know, the level of the industry environment is so different today. Just to add to that when I pick up on an earlier point in our discussion about the value of never seeing any event in isolation. And just as certain actions in the aftermath of, well, during the global financial crisis were only possible because of what had preceded them, that took place at the same time. Similarly, if I look at our response back to the pandemic, the responses that happened at a policy and an institutional level did build upon and did use institutions and understandings and the experiences that were built up in our last crisis. And that was certainly from a political point of view, a really important context to the decision making that I was involved in participated are so happening. And if I would give two examples of that. One is that the integration and the coordination of monetary policy and fiscal policy is clearly at a far different nature and far different level than would have been the case and was the case a decade ago. And the actions of our central bank, the actions in the extensive monetary intervention that they put in place, the actions of the European Commission in the very clear signaling that was sent out regarding the activation of general trade clause, and the indications regarding the future of next generation EU fundamentally changed the background for fiscal decisions that were made at national level, and policymakers, including myself though, I was only a member of government in the aftermath of the last crisis as opposed to during the dark moments of us. And we have clear lessons that we vividly remember, regarding how you use fiscal policy in the aftermath of a crisis that really mattered then when you were in the depth of this one. But there was an integration of policy making that has made a huge difference. And for example, in Ireland's case, our ability to put in place economic support that have worked that have made a huge difference that has stood behind our citizens when they needed economic support and were enabled by what happened at European level. And that is that that's just critical it's profound to where we are now. And then again, again to make a political point what I saw very vividly in between March and up to the summer of last year with an appreciation of our economic interdependence, and that we would only pull through this, if we were going to pull through this together. And that was a, a really powerful instinct and dimensions debates that happened across that period, which again was influenced by all we went through a decade ago. I mean one of the things that's very striking of course is that there was a common shock this time, which was different to the previous time this asymmetry in the way it's experienced by countries but the commonality of the shop. And no blame going with it. I mean, do you think, looking at the European institutions now that that commonality of experience has strengthened the interdependency, just by virtue of it having happened in other words here's Europe collectively dealing with a shared external shock that's affected everybody and come out of nowhere and nobody's to blame. So what's the positive thing do you think for the institutions I suppose I'm thinking of you minister overall right across the monetary fiscal the various domains. So I think you. You only get so far I guess in the in the commonality continuum, because yes it is the case that in the origins of the crisis. It has origins in biology in a public health risk. What happened to to decisions that economic policy or regulatory mismanagement this was a profoundly different crisis that had its origins outside of economics. Because the public health decisions have found economic consequences. However, on the other hand, while I think it is the case that we were facing a common experience. The impact on different economies within the euro area is still divergent. Divergence is a risk that we are deeply aware of. And underneath the, you know, the terminology and lingo of things like macroeconomic and balances. It does speak to the fact that depending on the structure of your economy, and not just sides of your economy structure of the repercussions of this common experience can be very very divergent. That was a really important driver then for next generation EU. But then on the other hand, yes, you are correct. For example, when our Commission, Commissioner, the boss gets gentle owning, and of course the president of the Commission, we're looking at how they can respond back to that they were aware that our common project was at risk. And they were aware that some of the narrative of the last decade was absent and have to be absent in decisions that we would make. So yes, indeed, commonality gets so far, but it's awareness of the lack of a common experience, depending on the structure of your economy that in turn led to the common response back to this next generation EU. Yeah, I mean, I think it's maybe important to make two further points. One is in 2007, August or seven, we just the start of the stress in the global financial system. There was a sustained period where it was perceived as a common shock. It was the global financial crisis. The ECB was early at the gates in 2007. And if you go back to the early years of that long extended crisis, you know, many of the points we're making now are made about the value of having a common currency. But of course, then there's a mutation, if you like, in that crisis into a sovereign debt crisis, which are so divergent across the member countries that's so difficult to handle. Now, what I want to emphasize in terms of the link is all of the reform made after the last crisis has been actually important preconditions for how this crisis has been handled. And for example, the fact we do not have a single supervisor mechanism means that essentially through the meetings of the supervisory board, a lot of supervisory actions updates, which are in many ways quite technical but quite important for the ability of the European banking system to respond. You can only imagine the coordination problems and the suspicions if national banking supervisors were making independent on coordinated positions. So the SSM, you know, which of course is a different link from the ECB, it has been so important. And I want to emphasize also, even though of course there's many debates by the fiscal framework, the fiscal rules, the fiscal compact, the fact that it was strengthened, that even though many debates continue, that broadly going into this crisis, fiscal positions were such that, you know, it was possible that was the fiscal space to respond to this crisis. And, you know, at some point, when the recovery is secure, it does illustrate an issue that will come up again, which is, you know, in order to have that capacity to respond to these kind of disasters. So how do you rebuild our fiscal space, you know, in kind of a so-called normal times, you know, and of course that's going to be, I'm sure an issue in the upcoming debate about the stability growth pact. And it's just kind of taking that as a sort of, I mean, there's a sense in which going into this crisis with better fiscal space, and we've had low interest rates. So they've been very much on, you know, have facilitated the way in which it was possible to get wider agreement. And essentially to both of you is, I mean, how would you see Europe continuing to improve the resilience and strength of the Euro area currency and the European institutions, I guess, over the next period of time. And what do you think are the crucial steps, because as the Minister said earlier on, it's always going to be evolving. This is not a job that's ever fully done. It's a complex governance situation. It's always going to be dealing with and developing. But obviously, the more you can anticipate and be ready for the better that's going to be. So I suppose my question really is what do you see as the ways we can have of improving the resilience of the of the of the euro and strengthening of the European Union generally over the next period while we're doing everything and you've mentioned a number of times the the new European proposals that are coming out at the moment. Do you think they're the key to it? Well, I respond back first. Sure, I think there's three areas in which we will look at how we can further deepen the resilience and strength of the euro and the euro area. But before we do that, it kind of reminds me of the ever needed debates that we have in politics by the need for change. And I think it's always worth emphasising when we look at what we need to change, but has also been achieved. And even for example, just in the recent months, the agreement that was reached in the euro group and in the euro group in an extended format regarding changes about the single resolution fund and the operation of the European stability mechanism. These are things that much work had gone on were very, very difficult. But through our shared efforts, we reached agreement on at the end of last November, which is another part of how we move forward with banking union. But to answer your question regarding how we need to move forward three areas, and I'm going to begin with the blinding the obvious. The first one is the ability of the euro area in particular to recover from the pandemic and to recover in a sustained way. We have, I believe, a rebound that is still underestimated in terms of how strong it will be across the euro area in the second half of this year and in next year. I believe the combination of our vaccination efforts and next generation EU and the right decisions that have been made a national level with the constant enabling background of the guidance the central bank has provided. Our contributing will lead to a recovery that is beginning, but we need to turn that is into something that is sustained. We are too quick at times to evaluate success or failure with a purity on the metric of where we're going to be in December 21 or December 22. We have to look beyond us to what is the sustained nature of recovery that we can deliver. Secondly, it is banking union, the future of banking union, how we can move beyond where we are, which is something I'm putting a huge amount of effort into at the moment. Seeing if we can reach agreement regarding the next projects that we want to make progress on and by when. And then thirdly, even though it should be as emphasized, it is this is not euro specific. We go back to my first point, how we craft our budgetary policy in an atmosphere that is still highly uncertain. And then use that as a segue into the debate, which will happen in Echo Fane, which will be instigated by our commission in relation to the future of the fiscal rules and what they will be and how they will be crafted. There are the three areas, but I would emphasize it's the first area. If we cannot show to our citizens and to the world, our ability to deliver a durable recovery from where we are now that that is the foundation on which we build other elements of strengthening. Philip would you like to come in on that. Yeah, so I mean, in terms of categories, I mean, I think those categories are the right categories.  All of the debates we've had about different topics, for example, take one topic, the ability of the European banking system to address a non performing loan issue. Which has been, you know, a big issue in Ireland, but in many parts of Europe. But essentially, we saw from that episode, and it's more general point is good macro economic performance, good sustained macro economic performance is that the foundation in terms of building trust building confidence and building a sense of coherence that says we're all on the same track. So so I think it's, if we think about the next number of years, we clearly have two phases of that. One is to to make sure that the initial rebound because we are seeing it now, we are seeing now, if you like, coming out of lockdown and with vaccinations progressing. There will be a rebound from the very low levels of activity. It should not be underestimated the scale of the drop in activity, which of course being concentrated in certain sectors. And if those countries where those sectors are bigger parts of the economy, it should not be underestimated the scale of that. And that's again it's really a global point. And what's necessary is to recognize a rebound does not deliver a sustained recovery. And this is why one of the nice features of next generation you it's a five year project. It's not just about, you know, having a very transitory stimulus, it's essentially a platform for for medium term growth performance. You know, we're a medium term organization as the ECB so definitely looking beyond the noise, looking beyond some short term fluctuations in various data, and looking about well, where do we think the economy is going to be two years from now, and going further, you know, five years from now. So, in terms of, of course, all sorts of factors will matter for that world technological developments. All sorts of factors will matter. And of course we have a lot of debates about digitalization, the green transition so on. In terms of policymaking at a European level, to me, the three dimensions. I've completely endorsed all the work to make progress on banking union and capital markets union. And that should not be seen as a zero one, you know, we don't it's not case we either don't or we do have a banking union. We need to make further progress towards making it better than what we have now. I mean a lot of the place we need more. And so it's basically it's a long march. But what I would emphasize is behind banking union capital markets union is further integration to single markets. I mean, this has been going on for decades, but we know it's still the case, especially in services that there's a lot of domestic regulations that a lot of kind of non tariff barriers and so on. And if you like, if we have a more integrated economy, the integration of banking systems and capital markets go hand in hand. And then the third element is, and this is where the track record comes in. And, you know, conceptually, the kind of elements that have gone into next generation EU do provide a template and I'm not going to debate whether that should be permanent or it's only reserved for truly exceptional circumstances. You know, I think we will learn a lot. We will learn a lot in the coming years about the nature of that program, which of course is not just about finance. It's also about the more general ingredients in the country by country recovery plans. So, you know, it's, I think, again, the pandemic was unexpected. Totally welcome.  And, you know, we should definitely where we can take advantage of those innovations. But, you know, going back to the basic point is all of this is completely intertwined with overall market performance. And that's, again, to re-emphasize not about just returning to where we were in 2019. It's about returning to the trend path. You know, because of course we've lost a couple of years of growth. And actually, you know, even better, even though Europe has been a slow growing place, even better to boost the trend performance of your area. So we have a lot of a lot of questions coming in from the audience at this stage and there's a number a number of themes emerging you won't be too surprised about. But one maybe to start start on on the discussion that links to what we've talked about already and relates really to the inflation and returning inflation and particularly in relation perhaps to the to the to the United States. So one question from Bill Emmett, who's formation chief of the Economist and his chair of the Trinity Longroom Hub, and he makes the statement and asks, he says, inflation is rising in the United States, leading to the prospects of rising dollar interest rates, possibly gradually, possibly sharply. What impact you see this happening, see this is happening on the euro area and on your area economic policy and I suppose it plays to the opening remarks both of you made that that Europe is situated in a global world, not just in its own world. So I don't know who would like to start with that minister. Do you want to take that question to start with. Then I'll come in afterwards. Okay. Okay. So I mean, I think. And I wrote a piece for the ECB website a few weeks ago that it's, I mean, by and large, a lot of what we've seen now is just the reversal of what we saw last year. In the spring of last year, there's a big plunge in oil prices. That's now being unwound. Of course, when you have a lot of people, you know, the good news is, is the recovery, the rebound is stronger globally than many people expected. So what we've seen is various industries were too pessimistic. So there's shortages, for example, and semiconductors, there was constraints in some shipping routes. And of course, when you have an unplanned bottleneck, there's going to be some price action, but that is not inflation. That is just, you know, kind of supply and demand. And we know when you have those kind of price spikes as supply tends to respond. I mean, the price of PPE masks, you know, today is very different to a year ago. Someone famously I saw a recent, some recent note about the kind of a, you know, a lot of discussion a year ago about toilet roll shortages, which, you know, the market does respond. So I just think that that nearly zero connection between any kind of spikes in prices on the reopening of the world economy, and what goes into the inflation trend. And here I would emphasize is, you know, two thirds of European price index and same in America is services. When you think about what goes into services inflation, it's basically the labor market and both in the US and in Europe, the labor market is nowhere near. And then there's no prospect of a super rapid bounce back. And then this is so important that going back to rebound and recovery is, you know, we all, you know, we also at the ECB agreed there's going to be a good time this year and next year. But that's reliant on a lot of policy support is a huge labor market challenge coming up about not just getting people back into working who have been, you know, forced out of their work because of social restrictions. But we also know that it's going to be this this trend shift because we don't none of us, I think, thinks the world can be exactly the same. We've had a pandemic as before in relation to working from home, travel and so on. And labor markets, all markets find it difficult to deal with that reallocation so there's a huge challenges here. So the idea that the world and the area has a kind of environment where the setup for persistence inflation. We don't see it. So we, we think, you know, we are providing a lot of money accommodation. There is a fiscal support which, you know, does help inflation dynamic. But in our recent projections were projecting in 2023 at two years from that inflation in the area will be at 1.4, which is far below our aim. We have a lot of work to do. And so this narrative of a new inflation environment. I just put very little weight on. You just have to look at the inflationary trends in the context of where we are with other developments in our economy and other economic indicators. Let me just develop to further look at the extent of under employment we have within the euro area look at the level of unemployment that we have in many other deeply important economic trade global economic partners. Secondly, all over the world, businesses are recreating themselves. They are literally restocking in front of our eyes. We have new containers restocking. We have those who are involved in manufacturing and construction, or during searching for new raw materials. We have supply chains that are reawakening. And if we make the case that I think both of us are that a rebound is the first phase of a recovery, but not the entirety of recovery. We have to be alert to what a rebound may involve and what will take place in the aftermath of a rebound as we try to move into a more stable growth environment. And so of course we're always aware of risks and developments and always considering what the future could bring, but you have to anchor this debate in every other challenge that economic policy makers are confronting at the moment. I think one of the challenges is that even quarter to quarter inflation figures coming from the US seem to put people into a panic that this is the beginning of some inflationary spiral completely out of context. So that notion of confusing spike price spikes with real inflationary trends. It just seems to be endemic at the moment. It is important to say, compared to last year, last year, there was a lot of pessimism, at least the financial markets were putting a lot of weight on really pessimistic outcomes. So what is true is that we do now clearly with the vaccinations rolling out, we do see compared to those awful scenarios. There's a prior traffic. But you know, so the fact I mean there is an element of what's going on, which is basically the market price in that disaster scenarios. The fact that the price net disaster scenario is not the same thing as saying we're entering some new inflationary environment. And that's essentially the situation. And of course, I mean, when you look at the most recent.  So rebound when you're, you know, I say you're we haven't even we're not getting back to 2019 GDP until early next year in our calculations. But we should not that is not that's just kind of a stage one where we will be below where we should be in terms of trend. We think in our calculations unemployment take another year. You know, it's another year, you know, so GDP is not the kind of a soul metric, it's going to be another year for free the unemployment to come down. So, you know, and of course there's so many corporates coming out of this without, you know, with compromised balance sheets, so their ability to invest. That they're the requirement to make sure physical support it is it is not lifted too quickly is going to be very important. So, I mean, it's very interesting and I just got a new book by Daniel Kahneman and other, you know, on noise, but the psychology now is people are looking for the delighted. I mean, I'm delighted to see the vaccinations people are going to be happier and of course public health from several else. And we do have to take this kind of a medium term perspective and not confuse a reopening of the world economy with some new golden era. So I want to move a little bit over on the fiscal side a number of people have raised questions relating to that I don't have an opportunity to read out all of them. But there's a question from a weekend in UCD, which goes as follows if the fiscal deficit and public debt rules were suspended to fight public health pandemic. Is it time to recognize that there needs the same needs to happen to fight the climate emergency, and in Ireland, the housing crisis. And I suppose this is getting at the notion of whether reform of fiscal rules, which other people have referred to as well, which Mr Draghi has as I wanted to as well, need to be part of where, where, where we go next. And Minister, I think that's one for you rather than for Philip. So the current fiscal rules, Ireland's increased its capital investment, for example in housing to Professor readings point there from around 900 million euro per year in 2016 to 3.2 billion euro per year in 2021. So enhanced and growing capital expenditure is possible, even under the existing fiscal rules. And of course the antidote back to the great challenges we have with regard to housing at the moment are more than just expenditure expenditure is a hugely important part of us. There are many other things that we have to reflect and change on. But for example, under the current rules on the prevailing sentiment of the financial markets then we increased the number of houses that the state is directly building per year to from below 1000 in 2015 and 2016, which is far too low to between five and six thousand per year now. So increased capital expenditure and significantly increased capital expenditure is possible under the current architecture that is there, even with the, particularly of course with the activation of the general state clause, in terms of how we move beyond us. I always need to make clear when we move into this terrain of fiscal rules that I'm speaking as Minister for Finance for Ireland, but it's been pressed into your group, because the fiscal rules is an EU wide debate and an EU wide discussion because of course includes our non-euro friends and partners. But beyond that, I do believe there is going to be an increased appreciation regarding the role of capital expenditure and the need to keep that stable at high levels or grow further. Because if I look at where we were in the aftermath of always 12 to 13, one of the many lessons that I learned from that is that when you significantly reduce capital expenditure, even if you believe that it's justified at the time, the consequences of that are always there in the future. When you reduce the number of houses that have been built in the country for a number of years, sometimes for reasons beyond your control, that has seen massive consequences then, with where you are with the supply of homes to your society, and then particularly if the performance of your economy really begins to change. So, given where we are at the moment, significant changes in capital expenditure are already possible. But as we move beyond that, I do believe there will be an increased debate regarding how capital expenditure can better enhance the growth performance of your economy and better help us respond back to the climate emergency and our ability to mitigate us and respond back to us. Of course it's not about expenditure, it's also about taxation, it's why we've increased the price of carbon for two years a row here in Ireland. Despite the consensus that is sometimes claimed to be there regarding climate crisis, it's still the case that most political parties in Ireland vote against increasing carbon taxation. And of course that plays a vital role in changing private capital decisions, not just public capital investment. So today's conference I suppose is starting by looking back 30 years, looking back over 30 years and obviously now also want to look forward, what are the things that are going to be out there over the next 30 years. Yes, I suppose one of the issues that I know both of you have spoken about I just be interested to hear maybe this audience would like to hear your views on relates to digital currency and the development of digital currency in the euro area and the role of if you like the ECB and others as regulators of that process because imagining this conference in 10 years time looking 40 years back, I'm absolutely sure that that digital development would be something that will take place so would you maybe Philip starting with you would you like to comment on that. So, as you can tell around the world that this is really moving along that so I think there's been some conceptual breakthroughs about how to bring in a digital currency so right now, you know we're very early stage of thinking about it. There's no decisions and it's clear. If we made a decision to go in that direction go to also be a huge amount of different dimensions to think about. And so from a central bank point of view of course you know as the kind of responsibility for money. But maybe, I mean, people are very different sectors on this but what I would say is that that this should be seen as essentially evolutionary that essentially, you know that we will still have a currency, we will still have the fact as we have already. A lot of money essentially these days, electronic form already in terms of making payments from your bank account, making payments to your various apps and so on. And having a digital currency, I think that there's a clear conceptual case. There's a lot of practical issues to think about. But what I would say, more generally in the 30 year framing you have clearly in the digital world, how we think about boundaries is quite different. And this goes back, I mean imagine that without the euro, we had the 19 current members of Europe all trying to work out what kind of digital currency, you know, should we think about it goes back to again the state economies, the kind of value of having a single currency is going to be reinforced in the digital world. So having a kind of a digital currency, a euro digital currency. Again, if the decision is on that it's a good idea. And to me again illustrates the value of that major decision 25 30 years ago to form the Montreal Union. The first thing to say is that in any such debates and any such developments and we're at an incredibly early stage in relation to us. The independence of our central bank in the euro area is the anchor to a stable discussion about this, let alone any developments with regard to us. And again, it goes back to the value of the institutions that we have. And our business debate and more and more. I just think it's important to focus in and what is the nature of the potential instrument that we are discussing. And it is only potential at this point, and it is having at the very least means of payment that is safe, that is stable. And I also believe simple in the context of developments that take place in the private sector with regard to this. And as I look at where we could be over a 30 year horizon and indeed beyond, there are for me as a politician, two important dimensions to this. The first one is, is the creation and the definition of money is inherently political. It's intimately releases into the exercise of economic sovereignty, either as a sovereign on its own, or in the euro area through shared sovereignty. And that is a deeply, deeply precious and powerful quality, deeply important. And in the debate that has yet to come, let alone decisions that are yet to be made as president of the euro group, it's a theme in this discussion and this process. And then secondly is the issue of financial inclusion and the risks of financial excretion. And we touch the moment to go regarding that powerful moment physical manifestation of a currency, a theme in the in the debate that we are having and this is, I must very well understood by Eastern being in the thinking they're doing about us is that if the euro area and the euro is a currency for all for those of us who live in the euro area, it's so vital as we think of the digital future of the euro that that is delivered to and that is by the care of which this has been evaluated by our central bank is so important, because I know they're very much aware of that. Minister, you're not be surprised I think every event you go to the corporate tax rate and the future reform of taxes in Europe and under the OECD comes up and I know this is sort of something you're familiar with and they've been needed to say quite a lot of questions have come in on this today but let me just take one of them and which which as with a couple of them, maybe, maybe together, and can Ireland's economy, this is from Hanna DC, I'm sorry, big apartment Gareth keen at Zurich insurance, how can Ireland's economy continue to thrive after our corporate tax advantages are removed or at least substantially reduced and a second question related to the fact that, sorry, to do with the fact that the Department of Finance forecasts have estimated that Ireland stands to lose approximately two billion due to reforms in international corporate tax rate. Is it a potential that these figures will be underestimate the true budgetary impact of a deal at the OECD? So I suppose there's this set of questions that will always come up and we'll park Phillip for a moment on the side while we let you deal with those if you would. Of course Francis and then again at this point I need to make explicitly clear that I'm speaking as Minister for Finance for Ireland and not of course as President of the Eurogroup because the Eurogroup plays no role at all with regard to taxation. To begin with Gareth's point, of course we can respond. Of course Ireland will be competitive. Of course we will be able to continue to grow our economy in any of the scenarios that may present themselves with regard to corporate tax. And you have to take a step back to look where our economy stands at the moment. You could indeed have made the case that at other points in our economic development, the role of tax paid a defining role in relation to our competitiveness. It is now a really important pillar of our competitiveness, but we have many other pillars to that competitiveness, many other parts of our economic model. And they will be more important in the future and we will recognize that and we will respond back to us. And the debates in which I've been very active in and very involved in now over the last number of years as Finance Minister for our country. While I am probably more than anybody aware of the risks in relation to us, I'm also equally clear that our country has the ability to respond back to us. And to find familiar ways and indeed new ways in which we will be able to support our economy and to support its role. And by doing so, create the resources for our people and for our society. In relation to the impact on revenue. Of course what we do Francis at any given point is we prepare revenue estimates on the basis of information that is available to us at any point in time, and then by the application of our judgment. That figure could change. It could change in both directions though, depending on what is the nature of the OECD agreement. I have said now for a number of years changes coming. It's the reason why I argue so strongly for us balancing our books and then moving into a surplus. It's the reason why it was important that Ireland has been running a primary budget surplus since 2014 and then moved into a position of balance and then beyond. After that, we would have been significantly in surplus if it had not been for the impact of the pandemic in 2020 and in 2021. And it's also the reason why at the right moment, we will need to begin the journey again towards rebuilding our fiscal resilience, because change is coming that change will affect Ireland. But the nature of the change and the nature of the agreement is going to be very complex, because to end on the point that that recognizes the challenge before I reaffirm my view that we will rise to us in agreement brings risks. But of course, the absence of an agreement also brings risks as well. It's also been significant risks. And I recognize and understand but in either scenario, with sensible decisions, particularly as we exit the pandemic, and with renewed appreciation of other things that really matter in our economy, we will be able to respond back to it. Philip, do you want to come in on that or anything with leave the pocket. Back to girls beyond well beyond the silver central bank. Yeah, no, I was going to, but I was going to actually put to some extent you relate a question which is as well as about the canvas of what the OECD is doing I mean what's become necessary to do this is the pattern of globalization that's taken place, and the way in which the taxes were designed in a pre globalized world suddenly work to be quite different along the line and countries take different positions now on where taxes should be levied that they may have done way back in the middle of the last century. I'm just wondering in terms of that, do you think there's any possibility that the potential for globalized remote working may also be something that might factor into how we think about the taxation of individuals and how that operates in the future. Is there something which the OECD will have to canvas as part of this because it's something that we wouldn't. The canvas is so bursting with color at the moment. So many different designs on as I'm not sure at the point they would be able to accommodate a further color or development. The issue of the impact on personal taxation and it's your relationship to location is probably something at least in the short term that will continue to be dealt with by national governments, but of course within the European Union. And those have a strong background in the basis of the law of the European Union as well. So I think that is the probably the only single item in relation to global taxation that our friends and the OECD won't be dealing with. So just to go back to us, you know, the broader case of taxation. It's also the case that when we get into this debate, the case is rarely made for the kind of change that Ireland has already implemented with regard to global taxation. I find large, the only person that will make this case. Maybe that's the way it should be. The last number of finance bills that we have brought through just because the issues are so complex and technical from control firm companies to hybrids to the changes that we've made in relation to the mandatory disclosure of tax information to embed the elements of the OECD changes into our national tax law. Because they're technical, and maybe because they don't have the headline simplicity of other things should not underestimate the significance of those decisions and their changes that we have made and changes we've made quickly. I pick up from both of you very optimistic view about where we're going to be able to go in the near term. I mean, you're obviously heading into a summit tomorrow. That'll be the very, very near term, but just looking out over the next year or two. Do you mean, do you see the, you know, the adjustment, for example, in, you know, policy from supporting economies widely to getting down to the sector level and getting, you know, industries and tourism and aviation recovery, but it becomes more sector or becomes more regional within Europe. Do you see that that will carry through easily with adding European level or do you think it'll be a very big demand on the system to make that move, maybe you'd start on that Philip. Well, I mean, it's a very interesting question because what I would say is, is we should remember, we've never been through this, we've never, at least in modern times, have been through the cycle of how the economy gets out of a pandemic phase. To me, I think there should be a lot of integration of the uncertainty of this whole process that, you know, it's not the case. I probably have is going to go in one direction in a perfect smooth way. So the, I mean, so I speak about central banking, rather than the fiscal agenda, and of course the sector issues are inherently fiscal, because central banks, we have kind of broad policies rather than policies that are customized to different sectors. But what is true is, we, and I should say for the last year the ECB has not just produced its kind of baseline forecast, it's produced optimistic and pessimistic scenarios around that. And we, in terms of policy making it's important that that we, it's not just about making conjectures, because we can be too optimistic or too pessimistic. It's also trying to sort through the incoming data, the hard data, and sorting out essentially where are we, where are we in this path. And I indicated earlier on to me, it's a long journey, which is different phases, and the initial phase of this reopening and rebounding is not the final phase. And so having a policy setup, if you like having a policy reaction function that differentiates from that initial rebound, and then trying to work out okay what is persistent. What is fragile. What is needed doesn't mean that, you know, we're always data driven, but I think more than usual, really working out with traditional data and new forms of data. It's really, it's going to be a huge challenge for sustained periods to really assess where we are. So, you know, rather than saying that we know where we're going is to say look if policymakers need to be paying attention and need to kind of really identify where we are in that recovery period. And so, you know, it is very important not to get overexcited about any week or month or quarter of good data, and really be humble if you like about, you know, what the underlying media and trends are. I mean there's a lot of debate about all sorts of conjectures about the future and you know my attitude to a lot of that is okay let's see. I mean let's see where it goes. I mean, is it the case working from home is going to be, you know, remain forever. Is it the case that travel is going to be downgraded forever. And there's many questions, which kind of better or worse answers. And so, you know, in terms of setting policy, we need to be at all to see, you know, which of those answers emerge over time. Minister, do you want to comment on that? Yeah, from my point of view, my feeling about where we are now is always so influenced by my experience of where we were not so long ago. I'll never forget those days in the Department of Finance and in our government, when we were confronting the risk of 600,000 people becoming unemployed over a number of days, because we were going to ask their employees to close down and they're not going to work. I'll never forget those moments and the challenges regarding how we supported social cohesion, how we supported employers, how we supported income. Those moments then in December and January, when we were confronting the third wave and the impact that was having on our country, the loss of life, those moments we were having 6,000 to 7,000 new cases per day, with thousands of people in our hospitals very sick. So to go through those experiences and to be in this battle, a battle between injections and infections, injections of vaccination versus the number of people who are getting sick each day. Of course, we're in a completely different place now. 30% of the European population, having one job, we're going to be, I believe, in a place of over 70% of the population across European vaccinators we approached this summer. The immense success that is the Irish vaccination program that is being delivered by our frontline workers, by our healthcare professionals, despite all the challenges they face, despite all the criticism and issues that were raised, it's vaccinating at scale. And that's making a massive difference. Of course, I feel very different to where we are now. But the challenges we have coming up are great. The complexity of them will be very deep. And they will change rapidly. And we have a lot to do to change an early rebound into a recovery that is real. There's a lot to do. And I'm always very optimistic about any challenge. But I'm also very realistic in appraising the nature of the one that we're now in the early phase of. I did a debate, Francis, a few months ago, when another debate was actually an interview. I found myself unwittingly asked into your shoes and having to share an event like this, which was a whole new skill I had to learn an event that was been organised by Dublin City Council about migrants. And I was attempting to interview Anne Appelbaum, which was a deeply humbling experience, given her enormous prowess and all she has done. And in response to a question from the audience, she said, pessimism is irresponsible. And I thought it was a useful piece of advice to me, despite my optimistic nature, and maybe because of us, about how we need to approach what is yet to come. But we have real challenges, but they are different to where we were a year ago. So in the nature of that recovery and bringing all things together, I just like to take a final question to you both, about the environment within a number of those in along the way. And it's from Martha O'Hague and Luffin Trinity College. Could the speaker's comment on the urgency of making environmental sustainability, sustainability, front and centre of the expected recovery. Now I know both of you have commented on this in Philip as recently, I think it's yesterday, but I just wanted to make a brief comment on that, you know, as part of this positive recovery out of the rebound. Philip, do you want to start? Well, regardless of the pandemic, we had key calendar dates, you know, 2030, 2050. So we knew already that there was going to be a major transition underway over the coming years. So the transition to towards net zero is just pervasive. It pervades corporate life. And for many families and households, of course, there would be changes in behaviour in terms of transportation, retrofitting homes and so on. So yes, this is, you know, from an economic point of view, there are two issues. One is the nature per transition, like I mentioned earlier on, it's always going to be difficult because you do have to reallocate. You do have to accept some sectors going to shrink and the value of some types of assets will go down, are going down and will go down. On the other hand, there will be opportunities. It is, you know, I think clear cut. I mean, it's reinforced in the next generation, a lot of activity will be generated by this transition. There's a heavy focus and it's a huge patch of payoffs to R&D in terms of the technology that will support that. So that engine for the world economy and the European economy, I do think it's net positive. It will help to kind of provide a focus and momentum for the recovery without wanting to downgrade the difficulties for, you know, many individuals and many firms. I think it's fully committed to being a green central bank. And in terms of, you know, for me as the chief economist, understanding the implications for economic performance, both over the business cycle and the trend. For our monetary policy, for the instruments we use, we have a big agenda. But of course, this is only one element of the agenda for governments, for the private sector and the double climate dialogues the last few days just illustrated. There's a lot of people working on this. It really is, I think, arriving at a kind of a tipping point where there's been a lot of talks for decades on this. I mean, there's been a lot of work, economic research has been there for 50 years about many of these issues. But you need to get your timing right. And we have no time really to delay. We have fixed commitments. And when you are now in nine years later in 2030, it's clear enough has to happen. I find a word from you. This debate is now moving into law. The climate action bill that is in the office, the minister of items introduced, looking to anchor our commitments for 2030 and then for 2050 into law in Ireland, looking to implement and bring in five year carbon budgeting. If I look at where we are within our European discussions when I joined Europe are echoing climates made an occasional appearance in our agenda. It's now a regular item on our agenda. If I look at the focus that we have with regard to green finance, for example, the debate that's underway in relation to taxonomy. If I look at what we've done here in Ireland. Everybody is not in government votes against these changes. Automatic increases in carbon price to complete overhaul of where we are now with our motor taxi taxation system and VRT to now mainstream environmental concerns regarding vehicles. This is now all happening. And a concern I had a year ago, but in the context then of the deepest challenges of the year ago is this would be a debate that would be relegated for a while, given the acute emergency we face then that hasn't happened. And it's not underestimate how much we need to do. But my my really has to focus now, and that focus focus is growing by the day. Listen, could I thank both of you for contributing today, I think it's a mark of the important role that the IIE has played in contributing to understanding European issues and European policy issues over the last 30 years. I'm sure that the late Brendan Halligan would have been delighted with your engagement today. It's very much a concentration, notwithstanding a bit of tax on the side, a concentration on European issues and European European agenda. But also the way in which the IEA team has organized this anniversary celebration, which is obviously centered on on its mission of sharing ideas and shaping policy so this is a perfect panel discussion from that point of view. On behalf of the IE I want to thank you the audience for your presentation presence today and your engagement and apologies that we couldn't get to all of the questions but I tried to pick up the themes and some of the ones that that we did get to ask. When I was young, it was tradition when you left a birthday celebration to leave with the gift. And in today's virtual world, I want to give a gift to all of you in the form of a reading and a watching recommendation. The recommendation is Professor Lane's paper, The Resilience of the Euro, which is published this quarter in the Journal of Economic Perspectives. I wouldn't be surprised by Minister Dunn who has already read it, but if he hasn't I'm sure he will soon. I think the coverage of other very complex issues is very considerable, and the clarity of the exposition is exceptional from a perspective I think of giving a big picture of Europe. The institutions are there. All the all of the all of the complex issues are there but it sets it out very clearly. So my watching listening recommendation and I say watching because you can watch it but you could also listen to it if you didn't want to watch it. This is Minister Dunn whose conversation with Marcus Boone Meyer on the Princeton University website a week ago today on the 13th of May. It's a tour de force to watch and to listen, and you can just listen to it because we get visuals but visuals aren't important. The experienced politician who's committed to policy that's evidence grounded in evidence, engaging with an economist who's contributed so much in economics to what is relevant to policy. So they're my two takeaways for everyone in the audience. And thank you both again very much and thank you to the IAE for organizing this event. Thank you.


not sure what to say in your personal statement. You have so many experiences you don't know which ones to pick or how to make it flow. Stick around and let's get out of the rut. This is right, your acceptance. I'm Dr. Josie. Hello. Hello. Make sure to subscribe and hit that bell so you don't miss a video. And we're going to get started now. I have worked with hundreds and hundreds of students on personal statements. I work with students in medical, dental, residency, and I know what they're looking for and I know how to help you stay relevant and be as compelling as possible. Let's get started. Step one, let's start with your resume. So if you don't have an updated resume, that's okay, but let's start with kind of a comprehensive professional list that you have. If you have it in your resume, great. If not, you can start your own list and you want to start kind of four buckets. Clinical experience is volunteering, shadowing, and I would say the kind of outlier would be the identity and non-medical experiences that are formative from the last four or five years. So nothing from high school if you're applying directly from undergrad. So stick with undergrad or if you have any graduate work from these most relevant years. Think about this list as like your fact-finding mission. You're looking for the W's. What happened? Where were you? Who you were with? And what did you learn? Right? So you're kind of trying to think about the experience through a journalistic lens first so that we can see and assess what kind of information you have. Think ER, evidence, then reflection. Anything that makes it into the personal statement, anything that you are going to use in your secondaries or in the activities section, you want to have evidence and reflection. So anytime you tell a story, you want to kind of reflect on lessons learned. And so that's kind of the ER acronym that we fun to use for writing. So for example, you had a mission trip to the Dominican Republic. You want to maybe start with the resume language, right? Like start with kind of thinking about those W's. What did you do? Who were you with? Where were you exactly? The patients that you were working with or serving, assisting doctors and medical students. What were you doing? What were the logistics? And then kind of go into for evidence, especially when you zoom into patient-centric experiences for evidence, reflect on that. Was that an easy experience? How was it difficult? How was it challenging? What did you learn? How did you kind of adapt to the circumstances? So kind of start thinking about those reflections. It's the ER format that you find kind of most relevant for your body paragraphs in your personal statement down the road. Step two, do this process through the ER process and the W's for all of the buckets, right? So the clinical, shadowing, non-medical experiences that you would potentially bring in. Remember that if you kind of consider brainstorming as something that you continue to come back to, you could in or kind of I suggest that you guys brainstorm way more than what you need in the personal statement because you'll need that for your activities, your secondaries. So make sure that you take the time to kind of really think about what the potential lessons could be, what the potential experiences that have advanced your why medicine. And ideally when you sit down to pick your different experiences for that one personal statement, so all the different experiences you're going to bring together in one narrative, you are offering different lessons. So the, you know, evidence from a specific story will yield a specific reflection and lesson learned. And then another story will kind of give another lesson or another sense of reflection to kind of show advancement and growth within your journey to medicine. Step three, but I kind of already jumped the gun is to honor your process. I always tell students, I'm going to give you kind of feedback as to what works for me, what I'm doing with students, kind of what is working best for my students at the moment. But you want to kind of honor your process. I kind of tell students, don't jump into writing a full draft right away. Don't jump into writing full paragraphs. When you write something, writing is hard, even for, you know, someone who loves it like moi. But if you kind of commit to writing paragraphs and paragraphs, then you feel more attached to that versus like you want to be nimble and you want to be kind of really critical as to what is going to make it into the personal statement versus what's going to be demoted a little bit, you know, slightly for your activities section, let's say. So you want to kind of, you know, don't commit too early for an experience and then feel like, Oh, I can't touch that. I have, you know, 2000 characters. No, no, no, you want to basically canvas all of you experiences first or my suggestion. And then kind of, you know, whether that's lists and bullet points or mini paragraphs here and there, kind of a couple sentences here and there for the story and then bullet points, the different lessons that you can kind of talk about. But first and foremost, honor your process. Also 3.5 step 3.5 is to kind of think about not just the splashy big experiences in your journey, but also the more quiet moments. Did you take a patient down to get a prescription refill at the hospital?  So these are kind of, you know, small moments that will definitely not make it into your resume, but could be very moving and compelling and could really yield some very interesting lessons for you in your personal statement. These are kind of from sample students. Step 4. Once you have a few of these stories or a few of these potential stories that you can pick four or five that are the strongest. And by strongest, I mean, for me, there's a hierarchy for experiences to kind of select from for your personal statement. So patient-centric experiences, the ones that you are connecting directly with patients are from me, rain as king queen. And so most important in your personal statement, kind of moments where you are, you know, engaging with community, engaging in scientific kind of curiosity. And so there is a sense of intellectual and community engagement in your personal statement. That's also important. I don't love shadowing experiences for medical personal statements dental is something different with regards to shadowing. So you want to kind of think about where you are most active in moments. And those are for me most important. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have the more kind of passive shadowing experiences. Every time I say a rule, someone will break it for me and a student will write something incredible. And so then that's why I always kind of say, you know, caution, this is an idea, but it's definitely not kind of a hard fast rule. But once you kind of have all of your experiences canvassed out, I would pick about four or five, probably not going to make all five into the personal statement, but pick four or five, and then kind of start writing out that story, right? And sprinkle in some images, some five senses, I want to see here, taste, touch, whatever possible, whatever is available, right? I want to kind of, as if you have a camera over your shoulder, I want to see what's going on. I want it kind of to be a movie a little bit as brief as possible. You just want to get into what is going on, how you kind of acted and how you connected with the patient, just enough evidence for then that reflection, that lesson. So instead of she smiled at me, you can get a little bit more kind of image driven and say something like, after I warmed my hands to help her stand up, she responded with a tired smile. And I knew that although we did not speak the same language, kindness is universal. So right there, we have a sense of touch. We have kind of the visual aspect of the smile. We have that there is a kind of diverse patient population or kind of a diversity or a difference in cultural backgrounds or linguistic backgrounds between the caregiver and the patient. And we are bridging that, right? We're kind of connecting on a different level. So we have a lot of different things besides the she smiled at me. I don't love when students write about how a patient is thankful or you know, are showing their gratitude for what they did for a kindness that they did. What I would rather do is kind of see what that taught you. So I would skip the thank you from the patient or you know, they smiles and said, thank you so much. I would skip that. And I would go into what the moment meant to you and your journey to medicine. So then once you have these four or five, you have the evidence, you have what you would write as reflection or lesson, you want to start picking which ones are the strongest for me, the barometer for strength to make it into the personal statement is the kind of let's say three anecdotes. Maybe you use four stories, but three for the most part that they are offering you varying lessons. So you don't want three examples of the same lesson. For example, three examples where you translated one in a clinical setting, one, you know, in line at the pharmacy and one in a homeless shelter. If you have these three and you do want to kind of bring this in, then maybe you bring all three examples into one body paragraph yielding the same or similar lessons, right? But you want the different kind of sections. So like the different main sections of the body paragraphs to be yielding different lessons, varying lessons. So you can show a multi-dimensional understanding of your journey to medicine. And so you want kind of different kind of lessons and reflections. What are your brainstorming hacks? If you have stuff that you know you're working on and you did an exercise that really worked well, definitely comment below. Please help our community out. And if you have any questions for me, I'd love to answer them down below. So here are a few moments that seem subtle, but have played very well in personal statements. So a student volunteer at a hospice center notices that a new patient loves tango ballads and brings a few downloaded on their phone. And next time, you know, that they visit with the patient, they kind of bring in the music and it becomes like a small ritual for them. And she connects with this patient in that way. A student brings sock puppets or a student brings socks to a patient who loves plays and they start kind of a sock puppet impromptu activity in the center. A student teaches an elderly nutrition class to Cuban Americans who want to eat healthier. And so she is adapting Cuban recipes to kind of swap out the less healthy ways of cooking with kind of more healthier options and still keep true to the cultural background of the group's palate. So a few of these were kind of introductions and a couple of those examples that I just listed out were body paragraphs that kind of were expanded. If you want to hear more about how you should expand your personal statements, especially those body paragraphs, I have a video coming up soon about that specifically. I also have many playlists. I'll put them in the description if you want to chat with me, free 15 minute call and how I work with students and learn more to work together. Definitely book your call in the calendar link below and I will also put my program down there so that you can see the website. The program that I work with students through is PSRX and I have just a couple slots right now actually to be honest, students are starting early this cycle. So any questions about that, any comments about kind of your brainstorming, definitely comment that below. I hope this was helpful and I'll see you soon. Take care.