We are experiencing, I believe, one of those "Franco-German moments" that will mark history, and we can now rightly celebrate it: on 18 May, a Franco-German initiative on the European stimulus package; on 21 July, a historic agreement by the European Council in Brussels on a EUR 750 billion package, supported by a united Franco-German alliance; on 20 August, the Chancellor visited the President of the Republic in Brégançon. Despite any fears, faced with the threat of the Covid crisis, Germany has clearly and unequivocally opted for Europe and the euro. However, in its early stages, the crisis appeared to distance us, due to our different abilities to respond, and sometimes in different orders. Europe has once again demonstrated in this crisis that it is stronger than is commonly believed. I will concentrate here on economic matters, because that is where my competence lies. Naturally, there are broader issues in Europe, that are concrete and emotional: those of our borders, our institutions, our military and diplomatic power, and, in a wider sense, our common identity, which is apparent to our fellow citizens. The President of the French Republic speaks of the necessary "European sovereignty". I am aware that this expression gives rise to debate. In any case, it means that Europe must not passively put up with events, in the face of the growing rivalry between the United States and China. That we can and should be proud collectively of our achievements.
We can look back at 18 consecutive quarters of economic growth; this is a robust, broad-based economic recovery. Now is the time to sort out the issue of non-performing loans. Banks need ambitious yet realistic plans to deal with their stocks of NPLs. And they need the right governance for these plans. Earlier this year, the ECB published its “Guidance to banks on non-performing loans”. Along these lines, and as part of our supervisory dialogue, we take a close look at the banks’ ability to manage their NPL stocks. We then scrutinise the plans devised by the banks to reduce those stocks. We will start providing our feedback later this month. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  Banks have to carefully consider how they will react should any performing loans happen to become non-performing. So, with the future in mind, we have to ensure that the problem of NPLs does not recur. New NPLs should therefore be conservatively provisioned within a reasonable period of time. This would serve to strengthen the balance sheets of banks, enabling them to focus on their core business. That’s why we have drafted an addendum to our guidance on non-performing loans. It sets out how we expect banks to provision for future NPLs. The main goal is to have timely provisioning, which should prevent new NPLs from becoming a problem with systemic implications. But let me say that while our expectations are firm, there are no automatic actions attached to them.