* * * I am pleased to be speaking before your committee on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the signature of the Treaty on European Union in Maastricht. That bold decision marked “a new stage in the process of European integration”1. It laid the foundations for Economic and Monetary Union, and the European Central Bank.
In terms of the medians of the Policy Board members' forecasts in the January 2020 Outlook Report, the real GDP growth rate is 0.8 percent for fiscal 2019, 0.9 percent for fiscal 2020, and 1.1 percent for fiscal 2021. 3.