And, notwithstanding the legitimate debate about the NorthSouth divide, unemployment is at around its lowest rate in every individual region of the UK for some 20 years. It’s not the Holy Grail but there’s no doubt that things are better than they were. But sadly that is not - indeed cannot be - true for everyone. Even in a stable macro-economic environment, economic progress depends upon structural change with some industries and individual businesses declining while others develop to take their place. That process of structural change is, of course I understand, immensely painful for those businesses that run down and for those people who lose their jobs as a result, even if they are able to find new activity or employment in an economy BIS Review 110/2000  2  operating close to capacity. What is more, these structural pressures have been aggravated over the past few years by the strength of sterling’s exchange rate against both a range of weakening emerging market currencies following the financial crisis which started in Asia three years or so ago and against the weakening euro. The hard choice - and it is a hard choice - for macro-economic policy, or more specifically for monetary policy, in this context is could we - or should we - seek to protect the suffering sectors or failing businesses even if that meant consciously putting at risk the stability of the economy as a whole?
Boris Vujčić: Croatia's joining the euro area makes it an active participant in defining a common monetary policy Speech by Mr Boris Vujčić, Governor of the Croatian National Bank, at the conference "Croatia, the 20th Member of the Euro Area", Zagreb, 24 January 2023. *** Your Excellencies, esteemed guests, ladies and gentlemen, it is my honour and pleasure to welcome you to the conference that marks an outstanding success of our country, our economy and our society as a whole, to which many of you have directly contributed: the introduction of the euro in Croatia. Allow me to extend my deepest gratitude to you for all your effort, hard work and dedication to this, in all respects, complex and demanding project. Commenced in 2017 with the Eurostrategy, a strategic document outlining significant and lasting economic benefits to be brought to the Croatian economy by the euro and, in contrast, relatively small and mostly one-off costs, the project involved a lot of stakeholders in Croatia and abroad. Exposed to a great many risks, it demanded that quite a few goals be achieved and challenges overcome in the process, which was done successfully and in the shortest possible period, notwithstanding all external shocks and requirements that had to be met along the way. Some of them are widely known, while only a narrow circle of those involved is familiar with the others. Still fresh in our memories are the COVID pandemic and the devastating earthquake that hit Zagreb in March 2020.