In order to generate innovation, innovative people have to be raised in Estonia, brought to Estonia - and kept in Estonia, hence the aim should be to create more high-productivity jobs. •  I maintain that being a part of Europe, we should become quality leaders since we have already lost the price leader position to Asia. This is undoubtedly easier to say than to do. Here we face the threat of outpacing the so-called natural development, which calls for step-by-step industrial development towards manufacturing products with increased added value - such a development is in fact currently under way in Estonia. On the other hand, the payback period of such investments is very long and the experience of several countries (including Finland and Ireland) has shown that success often arrives only decades later. Consequently - if it is our goal to become a quality leader, development activities in this direction should be launched as soon as possible. •  Here we come to the question, WHERE to start? The answer requires a good prediction or even a vision: which areas have enough potential in Estonia that are worth to be given systematic development priority. It is possible that due to its small size Estonia lacks any potential for developing high-technology industry since this would require the emergence of clusters. Even if we manage to develop our own high-technology industry, sufficiently high-level know-how will most likely emerge only in few fields. However, this does not mean that we should develop just a few areas.
The bottom line is that the long-term sustainability of public debt should be ensured by credible but flexible fiscal rules. In parallel, we could maintain the possibility of responding to large shocks through a permanent common fiscal capacity; in this respect, the Next Generation EU package is a positive breakthrough, and could be made permanent, although with more limited amounts. A few days ago, Mario Draghi, speaking at the Italian Senate in his current capacity as Prime minister, rightly backed “an increasingly integrated European Union that will arrive at a common public budget capable of supporting countries in times of recession.” In addition, a fully-fledged capital markets union is more necessary than ever, in order to supplement public risk sharing with private risk sharing across the euro area. In conclusion, let me say a few words on chamber music. Many of you have already heard the famous Piano Trio Number 2 by Franz Schubert. The harmony of the three instruments has charmed generations of music lovers, including Stanley Kubrick in “Barry Lindon”. In this piece, none of the instruments should be the only game in its own town. And none of them should be dominated by any of the other two, otherwise the harmony is broken. Quite the contrary, we can hear each instrument and the beauty of the piece comes from the response of each instrument to the others. The same applies to the three macroeconomic policies: monetary, macroprudential and fiscal.