6 [20]  of the problems among the general public, market participants and economic policy decision-makers. But it is, of course, necessary that this raised awareness results in concrete measures or changed behaviour that counteracts the financial imbalance. It is doubtful, as far as Sweden is concerned, whether it can be said that this has been the case, at any rate not to such an extent or at such an early stage as could have been hoped for. The fairly modest leaning against the wind that we practised was thus insufficient to halt the build-up of debts and housing prices. Nevertheless, I myself was not prepared to keep the rate any higher than we did in an attempt to achieve this. This was also apparently true of the Executive Board as a whole. If we had set the repo rate significantly higher, the increase in indebtedness would perhaps have stopped more permanently, but, at the same time, there is a severe risk that the development of the economy would also have been significantly worsened. Perhaps even more importantly, the development of inflation would have been even weaker than it actually was and it would have been even more difficult to bring it up and maintain confidence in the inflation target. One further conclusion, or lesson, is that a policy that leans against the wind requires that there is confidence in the inflation target.
Both happened in a critical moment, only a few months before our accession to the ERM II, at the time when we were taking the last structural reform measures that we were obligated to implement. Additionally, the pandemic caused the EU focus to shift to other pressing issues. It is with great effort that we managed to overcome all these shocks and obstacles that spring. However, just as we thought that everything was under control, we were taken by another surprise: our project was once again subjected to a test. In the second half of 2021, due to an uneven post-pandemic recovery and supply chain disturbances, global inflation picked up and inflation rates became much more dispersed across EU member states. The unfavourable inflationary dynamics was further exacerbated by the Russian aggression of Ukraine in February 2022, which happened only a few months before Croatia's fulfilment of the nominal convergence criteria was to be assessed by the Convergence Report. Given that the Maastricht price stability criterion was a moving target, the situation was tense until April last year, when we finally received positive news that this criterion had also been fulfilled. Some might call this a final stroke of luck, but it was well-deserved, especially considering all the effort, commitment, organisational skills and discipline demonstrated throughout the life cycle of the euro project. Saying goodbye to the Croatian kuna was perhaps a more sentimental moment for me than for other citizens.