Both aspects are particularly important in a monetary union, which makes structural reforms commensurately more pressing. The environment for introducing structural reforms is better today than for several years: all the conditions are in place for governments in the euro area, individually and collectively, to begin addressing their long-term challenges.
*  *  *  Ladies and gentlemen, Thank you very much for inviting me to participate in this panel on “long-run growth, monetary policy and financing of the economy”. For some this may seem like an unusual combination of topics, as it is often argued that monetary policy has no long-run effects. Monetary policy can however affect long-run growth in several ways.