Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice President and I are very pleased to welcome you to our press conference. We will now report on the outcome of today's meeting of the Governing Council. Based on our regular economic and monetary analysis, we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged. We continue to expect them to remain at their present levels for an extended period of time and well past the horizon of our net asset purchases. Regarding non-standard monetary policy measures, we confirm that our net asset purchases at the current monthly pace of 30 billion euro are intended to run until the end of September 2018 or beyond if necessary and in any case until the Governing Council sees a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation consistent with its inflation aim. The euro system will continue to reinvest the principal payments from maturing securities purchased under the asset purchase program for an extended period of time after the end of its net asset purchases and in any case for as long as necessary. This will contribute both to favorable liquidity conditions and to an appropriate monetary policy stance. Following several quarters of higher than expected growth, incoming information since our meeting in early March points towards some moderation while remaining consistent with a solid and broad-based expansion of the euro area economy. The underlying strength of the euro area economy continues to support our confidence that inflation will converge towards our inflation aim of below but close to 2% over the medium term. At the same time measures of underlying inflation remain subdued and have yet to show convincing signs of a sustained upward trend. In this context, the Governing Council will continue to monitor developments in the exchange rate and other financial conditions with regard to their possible implications for the inflation outlook. Overall, an ample degree of monetary stimulus remains necessary for underlying inflation pressures to continue to build up and support headline inflation developments over the medium term. This continued monetary support is provided by the net asset purchases, by the sizeable stock of acquired assets and the ongoing and forthcoming reinvestments and by our forward guidance on interest rates. Let me now explain our assessment in greater detail starting with the economic analysis. Real GDP increased by 0.7% quarter on quarter in the fourth quarter of 2017 following similar growth in the previous quarter. This resulted in an average annual growth of 2.4% in 2017, the highest since 2007. The latest economic indicators suggest some moderation in the pace of growth since the start of the year. This moderation may in part reflect a pullback from the high pace of growth observed at the end of last year, while temporary factors may also be at work. Overall, however, growth is expected to remain solid and broad-based. Our monetary policy measures, which have facilitated the deleveraging process, should continue to underpin domestic demand. Climate consumption is supported by ongoing employment gains, which in turn partly reflect past labor market reforms and by growing household wealth. Business investment continues to strengthen on the back of very favorable financing conditions, rising corporate profitability and solid demand. House and investment continues to improve. In addition, the broad-based global expansion is providing impetus to euro-area exports. The risks surrounding euro-area growth outlook remain broadly balanced. However, risks related to global factors, including the threat of increased protectionism, have become more prominent. Euro-area annual HICP inflation increased to 1.3% in March 2018, from 1.1% in February. This reflected mainly higher food price inflation. On the basis of current futures prices for oil, annual rates of headline inflation are likely to hover around 1.5% for the remainder of the year. Measures of underlying inflation remain subdued overall. Looking ahead, they are expected to rise gradually over the medium term, supported by our monetary policy measures, the continuing economic expansion, the corresponding absorption of economic slack and rising wage growth. Turning to the monetary analysis, broad money, M3, continues to expand at a robust pace, with an annual growth rate of 4.2% in February 2018, slightly below the narrow range observed since mid-2015. M3 growth continues to reflect the impact of the ECB's monetary policy measures and the low opportunity cost of holding the most liquid deposits. Accordingly, the narrow monetary aggregate, M1, remained the main contributor to broad money growth, continuing to expand at a solid annual rate. The recovery in the growth of loans to the private sector observed since the beginning of 2014 is proceeding. The annual growth rate of loans to non-financial corporations stood at 3.1% in February 2018 after 3.4% in January and 3.1% in December 2017, while the annual growth rate of loans to households remained unchanged at 2.9%. The Euro Area Bank Lending Survey for the first quarter of 2018 indicates that loan growth continues to be supported by increasing demand across all loan categories and a further easing in overall bank lending conditions for loans to enterprises and loans for house purchase. The pass-through of the monetary policy measures put in place since June 2014 continues to significantly support borrowing conditions for firms and households, access to financing, notably for small and medium-sized enterprises and credit flows across the Euro Area. To sum up, a cross-check of the outcome of the economic analysis with the signals coming from the monetary analysis confirmed the need for an ample degree of monetary accommodation to secure a sustained return of inflation rates towards levels that are below but close to 2% over the medium term. In order to reap the full benefits from our monetary policy measures, other policy areas must contribute decisively to raising the longer-term growth potential and reducing vulnerabilities. The implementation of structural reforms in Euro Area countries needs to be substantially stepped up to increase resilience, reduce structural unemployment and boost Euro Area productivity and growth potential. Against the background of overall limited implementation of the 2017 country-specific recommendations, greater reform effort is necessary in Euro Area countries. Regarding fiscal policies, the ongoing broad-based expansion calls for rebuilding fiscal buffers. This is particularly important in countries where government debt remains high. All countries would benefit from intensifying efforts towards achieving a more growth-friendly composition of public finances. A full, transparent and consistent implementation of the stability and growth pact and of the macroeconomic imbalance procedure over time and across countries remains essential to increase the resilience of the Euro Area economy. Improving the functioning of the Economic and Monetary Union remains a priority. The governing council urges specific and decisive steps to complete the banking union and the capital markets union. And we are now at your disposal for questions. Caroline Lough-Bloomberg News. Mr Draghi, at your last press conference you said that strong incoming data on growth was helping to reduce the variance in the path of inflation. I'm wondering now that we've seen some weaker than expected data, is there a risk that the variance in inflation could increase and potentially slow down the process of convergence? And my second question is, over the last four weeks, there has been quite a noticeable drop in the net corporate bond purchases. And I'm wondering whether you could explain the reasons for that. Thank you. Let me answer first the second question. I think it's always wrong to fix attention to one specific week or one specific month. There is a certain amount of flexibility around purchases. So what's happened here is that we had a higher seasonal amount of purchases at some point and therefore we kind of averaged down with lower purchases and this coincided also with the downsize of the program that took place after December. So there's no specific strategy behind the lower amount of purchases of the private corporate bonds. Now the first question perhaps suggests that I kind of report on the exchanges we had today because this would explain the answer to your question. First of all, the interesting thing is that we didn't discuss monetary policy per se. So all governing council members reported on the situation of their own countries. It's quite clear that since our last meeting, broadly all countries experienced in different extent, of course, some moderation in growth or some loss of momentum. When we look at the indicators that showed significant sharp declines, we see that first of all the fact that all countries reported means that this loss of momentum is pretty broad across countries. It's also broad across sectors because when we look at the indicators, it's both hard and soft survey-based indicators. Sharp declines were experienced by PMI in most all sectors in retail sales, manufacturing, services, in construction, and then we had declines in industrial production, in capital goods production. The PMI in exports orders also declined. Also we had declines in national business and confidence indicators. And these declines were sharp and in some cases, the extent of these declines was unexpected. So the issue is how the governing council has read these new developments and I think this was your question really. First of all, we have to look at the present figures now are still. First of all, the declines stabilized and the levels at which they are today are still above historical averages. Second, these declines happened as I just said in an introductory statement. After a period of very strong growth for the Euro area, we had four quarters, if I'm not mistaken, at 0.7%. So some sort of normalization was expected. And then we discussed what the possible causes of this, how to read this normalization. And clearly there is some unexpected component, as I was saying, which is mostly due to temporary factors, like especially in one country it's cold weather, it's the strikes, it's the timing of Easter and there are several temporary factors which may have produced this unexpected size. Then the discussion said how much is this supply, is the effect of supply constraints that are limited to labor shortages in some sectors like construction. But there are also other phenomena that like, for example, the drop in backlogs in manufacturing and capital goods sector that could suggest a softening in demand and therefore warrant monitoring by the governing council. So if I have to just give you an idea what the bottom line of this discussion is, in my view, is basically caution in reading these developments, caution tempered by an unchanged confidence in the convergence of inflation to our inflation aim. The overall growth remains, as I just said, solid and broad based and the risks are broadly balanced, but as I said, with more prominence to global risks, and I mentioned protection is. Now, having said that, measures of underlying inflation since our last meeting moved sideways and there hasn't been any convincing upward trend or signs that this upward trend may have to come, is about to come. There are certain encouraging signs on nominal wage growth where we still see some movements which may support price pressures in the coming months. So this is about it. I think I've answered your question. Mr. Ferles? Tom Ferles from the Wall Street Journal. Mr. Draghi, the euro is considerably stronger than it was a year ago. In previous speeches, you've mentioned that the volatility of the exchange rate is something that you're watching quite closely. It now seems to have stabilized around 122. Is this still something that concerns you? My second question is, I know you said that you didn't discuss the policy outlook, but a lot of analysts are looking at the incoming data and thinking that and pushing back their forecast for when the ECB might start to raise interest rates. Do you think that is sensible? And what conditions would you be looking for, do you think, before you started raising interest rates? Thank you. Again, I'll answer your second question. First, I said caution, tempered by an unchanged confidence that inflation will converge towards RAE over the medium term. But such convergence remains conditional on an ample degree of monetary accommodation. So in the end, a steady hand was where words used in the discussion in the governing council. Our policy has, as you just reminded us, has served us well and will continue to do so. And therefore, the other words we used were patience, prudence, first of all, in assessing patience and persistence. And finally, it goes without saying that the governing council shares its steadfast commitment to price stability defined as a rate of inflation which is close but below 2% in the medium term. Now, on your first question, you write the exchange rate stabilized, and the recent volatility is less, so it was not discussed. Mr. Malin? Jan Malin, Hanitz, but my first question is on you mentioned protectionism as a risk factor. It seems quite possible that the US extends its tariffs on aluminium and so on, also on the EU. How could an escalation of the trade dispute affect the ECB's monetary policy? And my second question is on the G30. The ECB has recently decided that you, as the ECB president, can remain a member of the G30 group. One question behind that is not only if this membership poses an actual conflict of interest but also a perceived conflict of interest. Why do you think the ECB itself is better than a pursuit to assess if there is a perceived conflict of interest than an independent watchdog like the Ombudsman? Thank you. The answer to your second question is in the very carefully prepared opinion of the ECB that was submitted about two weeks ago. The answer to the first question, we have to see what the exchange of so far rhetoric, almost rhetoric, about protectionism will produce. It does have, if we have an increase in tariffs, an increase in protectionism, there may be direct effects, trade-related effects. And they don't seem to be so far from what we can appreciate now. They don't seem to be substantial. However, we don't know the extent of the retaliation yet. And the extent, obviously, we can't know now what are going to be the direct effects of potential retaliation. What is certainly known is that these events have a profound and rapid effect on confidence, on business confidence, on exporters' confidence, generally speaking. And confidence can, in turn, affect the growth outlook. This is why we say there are risks. And these risks have acquired more prominence of recent. So we'll have to see, basically, how the growth outlook and, therefore, how the change in the growth outlook could alter what is the convergence of our inflation rate to our objective. Thank you. Mr. Weisbach. Annette Weisbach, CBC. Mr. Trage, I would like you to ask about your plans for June because there's a lot of speculation that June may be the meeting where we're going to get a roadmap from you for the second half of this year, how a potential tapering could look like. That's one question. And another question is how what you make of the recent movements in US yields, because we have seen US yields for the first time higher than 3% multi-year high. Is that affecting your policy, your thinking of monetary policy? Thank you. Thank you. The answer to the first question is that we haven't discussed that. So it would be premature for me to make any comment about that. As far as the second question is concerned, to some extent this increase in yields in the United States ought to be expected for at least two reasons. One is the different position in the business cycle of the US economy. They have, I think, an unemployment rate which is below 4% amongst other things. And the recent measures concerning fiscal expansion. So it's a natural development of the economic situation in the United States. Ms. Jones? Claire Jones, Financial Times. You noted in your answer to one of the previous questions about the importance of the effect of trade disputes on confidence. We're already seeing quite a bit of pessimism feed through into some of the business surveys, particularly the German business surveys. So if you're not concerned yet, what will you be looking out for in the what? You sound cautious if not concerned enough to change the policy stance. If you're not willing to do that yet, what will you be looking out for in the month or two ahead to get a sense of whether that impact on confidence is going to produce something more meaningful in terms of a eurozone economic slowdown, or at least risk that being the case. And the second question is you talked in a recent speech about the possibility of a reverse hysteresis effect, this idea that with an increase in demand we could see a revival in supply. I'm just wondering about the impact of that on the inflation target and if that is the case that you could have this sort of phenomenon present, does it not maybe make sense to try to overshoot the target, at least for a short period of time? Thank you. Thank you. No, don't get me wrong. We are concerned about these developments and we have to assess their impact on the medium term outlook for growth and prices. So it's not that we take all this with indifference. I mentioned before caution, caution and I mentioned some developments that in the changes in these indicators that may suggest a more durable softening demand and therefore they warrant monitoring. So we will have to assess this. I described however how all this is happening in a context of an economy which is still very, which is still grows strongly, which is just past the period a year or even more than a year with very strong growth given the history of the Eurozone and more generally of Europe. The second question is about whether the increased demand has actually caused an increase in potential output growth. From this viewpoint is it isn't necessarily linked to an overshooting of the inflation rate. It simply would suggest that there is more room for keeping the ample monetary accommodation in place be it based on assets or be it based on keeping low rates for a longer period of time while at the same time if that were the case of a durable increase in potential output growth where at the same time the neutral rate would be higher. But it doesn't necessarily actually, it doesn't necessarily suggest any overshooting of inflation. It's the sense to different things really. Mr. Schreuz. Thank you, Mark Schreuz, Börsen-Seidl. My first question, to be honest, I'm a little bit surprised when you're saying that you didn't discuss the monetary policy outlook or didn't discuss a roadmap. Isn't it already high time to discuss such things because given that these are decisions that will not be taken within a couple of weeks only. So what is the reason why you're not discussing such things already now? And the second question, if I may, to the vice president given that this is the last press conference, I will not ask you whether you will miss us in the future, meeting us every six weeks, but given your many years of experience as a central banker and your academic background, what would you say, how will monetary policy after the crisis differ from the period before? And what will this means in terms of the challenges for central bankers in the future, also in terms of exiting, but also in terms of doing monetary policy in general? Thank you. Thank you. I will answer the first question, which is actually a very, I would say, legitimate question and a proper one. Well, the reason why we didn't discuss monetary policy per se is that the reading of the current development since the beginning of the year is actually very important in deciding the next steps. So careful assessment, monitoring, the use of more information are all important components in the next decisions. That's, and so the very first thing we have to do is understand exactly and place what's happened in the proper context, whether it's temporary or permanent, whether it's more supply or more demand, whether it's something that is just the beginning of a more significant decline or it's simply a normalization after a prolonged period of very strong growth. And at the same time, this is combined with my answer to the previous question, what has happened to potential output growth? It was estimated a few years ago to be, I can't remember what the figure is, has it gone up permanently or not? So it is a complex reading, which is essential, I think, for informing our next decisions. So you're right to ask why not discuss the monetary policy, that's the answer. Vitor, your question is a big one. Yes, a big one, yes. Well, thank you for the question and for the terms of the question. I will certainly miss you, miss DCB, miss everything that I have been doing for many years now. I've been a member of the governing council for 18 years, eight as vice president of DCB and I have worked in central banks 33 years of my life. So it's really a change, which I am contemplating, you know, with equanimity, no big deal. I will do other things, but regarding to your question, which is an important one, of course, as other central banks, after the big crisis and all the unconventional measures that we had to take, have started to normalize and thinking about the future monetary policy. Well, the first thing to retain is nevertheless that the set of unconventional instruments that were used are now part of the toolkit of monetary policy, to be used if necessary in situations that may justify again that those instruments would be used. But thinking more about the future as it was implicit in your question, I have doubts that on the other hand, one can go back to the simple life of monetary policy as it used to be with very small central bank balance sheets and just policy targeting the overnight money market rate. Perhaps things will have to change a bit for two main reasons. The first one is that the structure of the financial system has changed enormously. And even in Europe, we are now much less bank-based system than we used to be. In my presentation of the annual report in the European Parliament, I had the occasion of quoting the numbers, which are impressive, just to sum up, if you take the financing of non-financial firms and you take only the debt instruments of financing non-financial firms, in 2007, 61% of that instruments were bank loans. Last year, the number is 45%. And if you take total external financing of non-financial firms, including then equity instruments, bank loans represent only 15% of total external financing of non-financial firms. So the structure has evolved dramatically, which means that the system that monetary policy has to think about to decide on the proper transmission of monetary policy is different. The second element which makes it different is that the complexity of the financial sector and the growing importance of non-bank part of the financial system means that the spectrum of interest rates that are more and more relevant are different. And so monetary policy trying to influence only the overnight rate perhaps will not be enough. I am not fully sure of that, but I think reading, by the way, several academic papers that have been thinking about this, that other instruments may become necessary and a broader targeting of other interest rates to ensure an effective transmission of monetary policy. So all central banks are now thinking about this medium to long-term future of monetary policy in an ever more complex environment of finance. Thank you. Mr. Canepa. The first question is about Latvia, given that the next meeting will take place there. So I understand that Latvia didn't get to vote at the last couple of meetings, went with that change, and have you considered even skipping the Latvia meeting given the embarrassing situation that it could put the ECB in, in a way? And more broadly, at the latest count, there are three governing council members under investigation. How does that affect the reputation of the ECB and perhaps also the idea of central bank independence? The second question is perhaps for the vice president, because it's about financials. We can maybe wrap the first one into one. The second question is entirely different about financial stability. And should consideration about financial stability be part of the ECB's thinking when deciding on whether to take further policy measures on the stock of legacy MPLs? Given that, as we know, they could have an impact on bank's need for capital and so on. Thank you. Thank you. Yes, the present situation is one where Latvia can't vote until there will be a governor in place. And so that's a fact. The second point is about, I think the reputation of the ECB is pretty good. It may happen that members, we are people, so members might have problems and that's why the judiciary processes on its way. And that will be found out. Now, what we care, however, different judiciaries in different countries will do their jobs. But what's really very important for us is that the independence of the central bank governors, even personal independence, beyond being institutional independence, be preserved and be protected. And on this point, the governing council is absolutely compact and in full agreement. I think I've finished. It's your turn. Okay, thank you. Well, on the particular point of financial stability and MPLs, let me first start by signalling that the situation has continued to improve enormously for various reasons, but certainly one of the reasons has been the pressure exerted by the SSM, by the ECB bank supervision, on the banks that have higher MPL ratios. And indeed those banks over complied with the targets that they defined and were part of the supervisory dialogue with the SSM, which is a good sign. And by the end of last year, the average ratio of MPLs over total credit was 4.8 coming below five, which is a big progress, although more progress is necessary and that's an average. The situation, as you know, is quite heterogeneous, particularly in six countries where the numbers are well above the average. So progress is still necessary. And the progress has to be gradual, as everyone acknowledges, cannot be done for one moment to the other. By the way, the banks are much better capitalized than before, and that's very important because it means that in the short term, the question of MPLs is not a question of immediate solvency issue because the banks have the capital. The problem is that having a important part of their total assets in assets that are not generating normal income affects the profitability of the banks, and that's the more immediate concern. Of course, if the bank is not profitable for many years, then the solvency issue may arise later down the road. But the banks are much better capitalized, indeed, in terms of the common equity. Capital ratio, the average now is 14.3, and no bank, however small, has less than 11 in common equity. And that's not total capital, it's just common equity. So all these considerations are important as it is also important to look to the SSM regulation that brought supervision to the ECB and there you see that there are micro-supervision competencies and macro-supervision competencies. And the ECB inherited then also a macro-prudential capacity via the SSM regulation. So the ECB slash bank supervision or SSM as in its mandate, in its basic legislation, both the dimensions of supervision. Isabella Bufaki from Sole 24. I have two questions related to interest rates. The first is on monetary policy. The Bank of Japan QQE has tried to have a target for 10-year JGBs, more or less close to zero percent, to go along with negative interest rates. Now, is there a level that you look at the bonds 10-year that in response to the rise of US treasuries could arrive to a level that is unwarranted or not welcome and that could be seen like a tightening that you don't want on financial market conditions? And the second question related to interest rate rise and so maybe the end of cheap money and look in the financial stability. The governing council urges, continues to urge specific and decisive steps to complete the banking union and the capital market union. Now, there haven't been incredible disaster steps lately and I'd like to ask whether you think that no progress on 80s and no progress on the backstop of the single resolution fund could actually undermine the confidence and resilience of the European banking system. Thank you. Thank you. The answer to the first question is that we did say on a variety of other occasions that we will be reacting to any unwanted or unwarranted tightening of financial conditions that might affect our median term outlook for price stability. And this remains the commitment of the governing council and when we say that the ample degree of monetary accommodation remains essential to guarantee the self sustained convergence of inflation to our inflation aim, that's what we mean. And we mean that we are ready to adapt this ample accommodation to any unwanted tightening of financing conditions that may alter our median term outlook for price stability. On the second question, you are right, there haven't been many steps of recent in completing the banking union that have been a prolonged discussion. So you should understand that this is mostly for member states to discuss so we are not really in a sense party to any negotiation. These are important decisions and are to some extent political decisions. Having said that, it's unquestionable that the decision the leaders took in the June of 2012 to proceed with the banking union to create the SSM, to create the single resolution board, to establish the fund, the single resolution fund and ESM were all decisions that were addressing evident fragilities, apparent fragilities of the monetary union, and which were made evident by the crisis but were actually pre-existing the crisis. There are several reasons why a banking unit and a capital market union are essential for risk sharing in the future without even thinking to fiscal capacity or other forms of risk sharing. So it's very important, it's overdue, progress should be made, that's what we say each and every time in our introductory statement. Having said that, we cannot do much more on that than we can still contribute as an advisor to the ongoing discussion. Mr. Jackeisch? Close on the Jackeisch-Eddie German television, Mr. President, I would like to touch on your remarks, you're having in every press conference that you see a lack of support by the political leaders. I would like to ask you, French President Macron has made, well, I've put it in my words, if you allow. Please let me ask you touching on the ideas of French President Emmanuel Macron has put forward who many people see as really significant in order to bring forward EMU. Unfortunately, he's getting very lukewarm support by most of the other leaders and also of his allies. Would you please comment your view on this, how you see these developments, please? And secondly, please allow me a second question to Mr. Constancio. Mr. Constancio, you are the only one of the members in the directorate who are going to leave in the next month, this directorate, and some people say there is now a type of generation change going to take place in the next month. If I understand this right, a lot of people in the directorate had really the wish that by the time this type of generation change is going to take place, government, a monetary policy should be back to a type of normalization. It seems that this is very difficult to achieve. Would you please give us your ideas, your comments on this, how you feel about this? Thank you very much. Thank you. Now, the first question, clearly we, the ECB, welcome any work on deepening the monetary union. It's apparent that the political decisions that underpin such progress are easier in certain countries than others. And we have to be patient. Simply, there is no alternative. We have to be patient. The leaders have to discuss the pros and the cons, but all of them are aware that the monetary union remains fragile if this progress is not achieved. So that is something we know for sure. There, and it's something on which all of us can count their awareness. Thank you. Victor, he said you're old. Yes, it's true. It's true, I don't contest that one. So thank you for the question, by the way. Of course, all of us would have liked that the repair after the crisis would have been shorter in time as it had been the case in previous episodes of recession, but this was very special and much more severe than normal. It also affected the financial system and the banking sector in a big way, so we know that this type of crisis take more time. But we can look back and perhaps with a little bit more of optimism that was implicit in your question. In the sense that we can say that most of the work has been done and that we are on the path to, as this press conference also indicated in the initial statement, in the answers of the president, that everyone feels confident that we are in the way to the normalization of our objective regarding price stability. And meaning that most of the way has been achieved. And that's very important. Of course, when we leave with a sense of the work almost done in that respect. And that monetary policy perhaps hopefully in the next few years will not be as exciting as it has been during the years I spent in the board because I came in the first of June of 2010 at the peak of the crisis. So that's a sense of fulfillment, but at the same time, yes, we would like to see the work done. Well, it's never done because we know that sometime down the road, there will be another recessionary episode very unlikely of the same scale of the one we had. But it will come. So, but the conditions now of inertia of self-sustainability of growth at this moment in the Euro area allow us to contemplate a few years of growth if there are no external shocks that can derail this smooth development. And we all know that these external shocks may indeed happen. Thank you. Thank you. Well, before we leave, just let me share with all of you the just two words on vitro costansio. You've been next to me on this podium now for almost seven years. Plus six years as central bank governors, we've been sitting next to each other at the governing council fiercely disagreeing on a variety of things, of course, but basically with an enormous, actually agree more often than not, and an enormous respect for you. The just one thing, I think you know it, but I just want to let you know this and tell you in front of all our friends here, you have been a fundamental presence in the governing council and in the board. You have been fundamental in taking key decisions over the last six years. And it's with the memory of your advice and the passion that you put in carrying forward your arguments and your convictions that will always remember you. Thank you, Victor. Now, one word however before we leave in which I want to welcome Victor Successor and Luis de Guindos who will join us as of 1st of June and attend our press conference in Riga. Thank you. Thank you.


Hello, and welcome to this overview of the OpenST Linux distribution. It describes the main components of this distribution and the way they are delivered. This training doesn't dive deep into technical explanations on Open Embedded, the underlying build system of OpenST Linux. This level of information can be found on community sites. OpenST Linux is a concept for an STM32-MPU Embedded software package. Concept here means a naming associated with pillars or values. These pillars are usage of a standard kernel interface. The target is to use kernel versions from kernel.org with a minimal set of proprietary patches. Storage of open source software. Open source is a strong foundation of OpenST Linux. Link to community. Target is to upstream as much as possible the source code, not only the kernel drivers, but bootloader code or build system as well. Communities bring great advantages in term of standard conformity, quality of code, security and long term support, not to mention development cost. Easy to use. The last pillar, but not the least, is the need for an easy to use solution addressing a wide range of customers from a garage developer to an industrial devices maker with various needs. Therefore, the target is a scalable, powerful and easy solution that allows customers to build what they need. Open Embedded was selected as the OpenST Linux build process. Once again, the target is to comply with standards and upstream as much as possible. The STM32-MPU-BSP or Board Support Package is upstream to the Yocto community. There are three available software packages, the starter package, the developer package and the distribution package. These three packages are complementary and answer different needs throughout a product development cycle, platform evaluation, application or kernel development, and integration and product delivery. The starter package allows a quick and easy means to get any STM32 microprocessor development platform up and running. The developer package allows the modification of some pieces of software of the STM32-MPU embedded software distribution, as well as the addition of applications in the platform software image. The distribution package allows the creation of a new distribution with a final objective of productization. The combination of these three packages covers all possible use cases, from discovery to productization. An STM32 microprocessor development platform, such as the STM32-MP157CEV1 evaluation board and a microSD card populated with the software image delivered for this platform are all that is required to discover the platform capabilities. No integrated development environment or IDE, no software development kit or SDK are needed. Just use the development platform as a micro PC running Linux. The software image contains firmware delivered as examples with regards to the STM32-CUBEMPU package if the considered development platform includes an ARM Cortex-M processor. What are the main use cases covered by this package? Evaluation of the STM32 microprocessor device and development platform, such as internal peripherals and performance. Execution of the CUBE-M4 firmware projects delivered within each STM32-MPU embedded software distribution starter package, such as the firmware available on the ARM Cortex-M processor. Direct development on the development platform of simple user examples in different languages — Shell, Python, etc. To do so, the starter package contains ready-to-use binaries. These binaries have been generated using an ST-open-embedded image that uses Weston, a minimal and fast graphical compositor. Binaries can be loaded onto a micro SD card using the Flash Loader tool. It is also possible to generate a custom micro SD card content from a script. The possibilities of combinations to generate a software configuration being huge that delivery only contains the most relevant set. The developer package provides on top of the starter package a software development kit or SDK for cross-development on a host PC. The following pieces of software of the OpenST Linux distribution in source code, Uboot, Trusted Firmware A or TFA, Linux Kernel, and optionally, OpenSource Trusted Execution Environment or Opti. The STM32-MPU package in source code, if the considered development platform includes an ARM Cortex-M processor, an Initialization Code Generator, STM32-CubeMX. This tool makes it possible to generate device tree for OpenST Linux distribution and generate the peripheral Initialization C code and IDE project creation files for STM32-CubeMPU package. An Eclipse-based Integrated Development Environment or IDE, STM32-Copro-MPU. STM32-Cube Firmware projects are supported by STM32-Copro-MPU Eclipse plugin. Project files generated by STM32-CubeMX can be directly opened by this IDE to continue CUBE firmware development. And IDE is optional for OpenST Linux development, since all actions can be achieved through a command line. What are the main use cases that can be covered with this package? Modification and tuning of the pieces of software delivered as source code. Good modification, efficient development cycle, compile, push on target, debug, tuning of the configuration options, for example for the Linux kernel, and adaptation of the device tree files for the microprocessor device and development platform. Development of the firmware running on the ARM Cortex-M processor, addition of your own Linux applications or Linux application frameworks, addition of your own trusted applications or TAs if Opti is part of the software release, and addition of your own UBOOT applications. This package allows the creation of a new Linux distribution with a final objective of productization. It includes the source code of all the pieces of software of the STM32-MPU embedded software distribution, including the application frameworks, plus a build framework based on Open Embedded, also known as Distribution Builder. A host PC is required to operate this package, a Linux host PC is even strongly recommended. Some open embedded basic terms are introduced here, layer, meta, append. These terms are detailed in the next slides. What are the main use cases that can be covered with this package? Design of your own Linux distribution. To tune the system configuration options, such as memory sizes or debug options, to share all the developments within your team, software baseline, and to prepare the final software for productization. Integration of the following software in this distribution. Any of your developments made thanks to the developer package, pieces of software coming from open source communities or third parties, and integrate your Cube M4 firmware projects in your own distribution, binary or source code, generation of your own starter package images, and generation of your own developer package SDK. Generally speaking, few dedicated people from the project team use this distribution package to create and regularly enrich the project Linux distribution and generate the project developer package. Most developers use this developer package for their developments, since it is a light and efficient or short development cycle environment. Open Embedded is a project initiated by the Linux Foundation in 2010 and is still managed by one of its fellows, Richard Purdy. Open Embedded is a Linux-based cross compilation framework. Cross compilation is the possibility on a machine with a given hardware architecture and a given operating system to compile programs for another hardware architecture or operating system. Open Embedded is open source, but it can be used to build proprietary code. It is based on Git for software configuration management. We'll talk about Yachto, Pokey, or Open Embedded, and this can be confusing. Open Embedded is a build framework for embedded Linux, is maintained by the community, is the source version of Pokey, and is mainly consolidated for ARM platforms. Yachto is a project that uses Open Embedded build system. Pokey is a reference system of the Yachto project, a collection of Yachto project tools and metadata that serves as a set of working examples. Pokey uses Open Embedded Core. Pokey is maintained by Intel. This setup is mainly consolidated for Intel platforms. Some projects work on a Yachto base, some others on a Pokey base, but in the end, everything is compatible. Open Embedded may be seen as a powerful yet quite complex build framework. To ease its understanding, let's sum up the main actions Open Embedded does during a compilation. Most of the operations below are defined in files named recipes. It downloads source code from various repositories. It applies patches to the source code. It cross-compiles this modified source code and prepares ready-to-deploy images. Eventually, it creates packages under different possible formats. In the end, thanks to the Open Embedded framework, these packages can be installed exactly the same way on an Ubuntu or Debian PC. As an example, an apt-get install on such a PC could also be done on the target. Remember, Open Embedded is a Linux distribution maker. In practice, Open Embedded generates a set of binaries. Binary packages, as explained previously. Linux-based system images, kernel images, device trees, everything your device will need to run the Linux system you have compiled. Tool Chains. Before actually cross-compiling the source code, Open Embedded compiles the tool chain. This explains why the compilation may take a significant amount of time. However, this is quite powerful. Imagine what would happen if you had to find the right tool chain to download prior to compiling. Your distribution kit. This kit containing the tool chain is already to use SDK. Once the framework of your Linux distribution is defined for simple development, SDK can be the best tool to work with. This graph coming from the Yachto project site sums up the compilation flow. Source code is downloaded from different locations. Patches are applied. The source code is cross-compiled. Images are generated. Images are generated, and SDK is generated. In addition, QA testing can be performed. A few more concepts first. Once again, basic vocabulary, layers, machine, distribution, and image are words that are regularly used in the Open Embedded world. In practice, their content is defined by a limited number of people, typically integrators. A layer can be seen as a folder whose name starts with meta. It contains recipes and configuration files. Layers are organized so that they contain information describing a comprehensive set. For example, the definition of a BSP is done in a layer. Other frameworks, such as QT, can also be added in a specific layer. On the other hand, the resulting product software is defined by the combination of a machine, a distribution, also known as distro, and an image, each of them providing a different level of information. Why is this? Wouldn't it be easier to find all the information in a single place? Well, it may be, but splitting the software in these three levels allows their combination in many ways. I like my software content, but I want to compile it for another platform. Easy. I want to add a software package to my distribution. Easy as well. I want to configure my software differently. Easy as well. Layer provides software, machine, and distro metadata. Machine, machine metadata, configuration of a hardware. Distribution, distribution metadata, configuration of a software. Functionality associated to hardware, Wi-Fi, network, Bluetooth. Functionality associated to software, init. Specific implementation of software, SDK name, image, set of software present on image ready to flash on board. Some software can be conditioned by the distro feature switch. Here is a graphic representation of the layers and their possible content. Each folder has a similar structure with configuration files and recipes. To assemble a distro, an image or software layer in the graph, and a machine or BSP layer in the graph, use the bitbake command, which is the command to compile with open embedded framework. The combination of the distro, machine, and image layers is done when the open embedded environment is initialized. It is time to connect all these concepts to what is actually implemented for open ST Linux. The figure above shows the layers created by ST. MetaSTSTM32MP contains a BSP definition, well actually three BSPs. A generic one, STM32MP1 generates all the selected combinations in a single compilation. That is useful for testers, for instance. And two dedicated machines, STM32MP1 eval and STM32MP1 disco for the eval and disco boards. Then, MetaST OpenST Linux. Here the choice is to host both distro and images definitions. In white characters are the official offers. And italic green characters are the configurations that are delivered as examples without official support. Here are useful links for the deployment of the OpenST distribution.


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