This building will inevitably become known as the “house of the euro”. It provides a sound foundation for the ECB to pursue its mandate of maintaining price stability for all euro area citizens. In that sense, the building is a symbol of the best of what Europe can achieve together. But it is also a symbol of why we can never again risk to split apart. We are standing here today in what used to be Frankfurt’s former wholesale fruit and vegetable market, a state-of-the-art functional building from the 1920s that has largely been preserved and incorporated into the new structure. Between 1941 and 1945, more than 10,000 Jewish people from Frankfurt and nearby were deported from here to the concentration camps. A memorial on the east-side of the building has been built to remind us, and those who come after us, of deeds that cannot and must never be forgotten. An integrated, democratic and peaceful Europe was one of the key lessons from this dark chapter in history. We have come a long way since then – but nothing we have achieved should be taken for granted. European unity is being strained. People are going through very difficult times. A recent Eurobarometer survey on how households in several countries are coping with the crisis showed that all respondents had been affected by a loss of income, and almost all said life was worse since the crisis hit.
Now we need to make progress in the other areas that remain unfinished, notably in terms of economic and institutional convergence. Still, I recognise that we cannot have a purely economic perspective on the questions facing our Union. While economic integration produces more jobs and growth on aggregate, this does not completely solve the problem that drives dissatisfaction with the euro and the EU. There is also the problem of distribution: who gains and who loses from that process? For example, higher labour mobility across countries might reduce unemployment, but it can also stoke fears about immigration and create insecurity for low-skilled workers. Opening up a previously protected sector might reduce costs for consumers, but it can also leave citizens employed there with an uncertain future. So, if we are to build lasting confidence in our Union, we still need to address this tension – to reconcile the economics of integration, which is about efficiency, with the politics of integration, which is about equity. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches  This is a complex issue, but a solution can be summed up in one word: skills. Theoretical and empirical research both suggest that recent technological change has been skill-biased. In other words, production technology has shifted in a way that favours skilled over unskilled labour, by increasing its relative productivity and therefore its relative demand. Equipping workers with the right skills therefore makes the economy more efficient and creates new job opportunities.