It is a historical fact that the CSCE Final Act was a one critical factor of creating the Europe whole and free. In recent years, fiscal statistics have played a role in my professional life in various ways, when I have worked as member of the European Commission, as Finland’s Minister of Economic Affairs, and as a central banker.
As Commissioner I was also responsible for Eurostat in 2010– 11, until I was appointed Vice-President with stronger competences in fiscal surveillance, when we created a firewall inside the commission and separated these two functions. As you can probably imagine, data generally are very much present in a central bank governor’s typical working day.