Jean-Claude Trichet: Ten years of the euro – successes and challenges Speech by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, Osnabrück, 12 February 2009. *  *  *  Introduction Dear President Pöttering, Dear Dr. Hentschel, Ladies and gentlemen, I thank you for inviting me to Osnabrück. Today I’m going to speak to you in German. That is for me both a pleasure and a challenge. I’m pleased to have come here, for the Osnabrück region is the home of Hans-Gert Pöttering. I have got to know, and have come to hold in high esteem, Hans-Gert Pöttering as President of the European Parliament. As the President of the European Central Bank, I am a regular guest at the Parliament. For us at the ECB, relations with the directly elected representatives of the people of Europe are very important. Osnabrück is also a suitable place for a speech on European integration. Its epithet is the “city of peace”. It was here and in Münster that the Peace of Westphalia was negotiated. It was the basis for peace in Europe in 1648 after the Thirty Years’ War. Today it is European integration that forms the basis for prosperity and peace in Europe during the last 60 years. Main part The euro is the most visible symbol of European unification. Economic and Monetary Union is the field in which integration has progressed the most. The euro is the currency now shared by 329 million people in 16 countries.
BIS Review 16/2009  7  The enlargement of the currency area for which we bear responsibility is a challenge specific to the ECB. No other central bank operates in an economic and monetary area whose expansion forms part of a structured integration process. No other central bank regularly integrates new institutions, as the Eurosystem does. With each addition to the euro area, the Eurosystem incorporates a national central bank in the “monetary team”, which consists of the ECB – the “captain” – and all the national central banks of the euro area countries. The euro was introduced ten years ago into 11 EU Member States as a single currency. At that time, the euro area had 292 million inhabitants. Today it comprises 16 countries with a total of 329 million inhabitants. Over the past ten years, five new members have joined: Greece, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus and, on 1 January of this year, Slovakia. Slovenia and Slovakia were the first former communist countries from central Europe to join. Their entry bears witness to their transformation over the past two decades. The accession of five countries in ten years also reflects the openness of the euro area. We are not a “closed shop”. The euro area is open to all Member States of the European Union. To join, a Member State has to fulfil the Maastricht convergence criteria. These relate to inflation, long-term interest rates, exchange rates and state finances.