SPEECH  Strengthening resilience in a changing geopolitical landscape Welcome address by Christine Lagarde, President of the ECB, at the 9th ECB conference on central, eastern and south-eastern European countries Frankfurt am Main, 17 July 2023 It is a great pleasure to open the ninth ECB conference on central, eastern and south-eastern European countries.
The CESEE region – which comprises 21 different economies[1] – can overall be considered a European success story in recent decades, having enjoyed rapid convergence towards higher-income countries. Between 2000 and 2021, the economic size of the region almost doubled to 40% of the euro area aggregate.