The prerequisite for this confidence is price stability, which is the responsibility of the Eurosystem (the ECB and the 19 national central banks); we have successfully achieved this primary mission. In France, the inflation rate has more than halved: 1.4% per year on average between 2002 and 2021, compared to 3.4% between 1982 and 2001. This is not just a statistic, it is a very concrete reality, measurable by a few examples. The price of a kilo of bread was EUR 2.7 in December 2001 and EUR 3.6 in November 2021, i.e. an annual increase of 1.4%. The price of pasta has increased at a much slower rate, with an average increase of 0.1% per year. The euro has therefore helped to protect the purchasing power of French citizens, which has increased by 25% over the last twenty years. The temporary “inflation hump” that we have been seeing for the past few months, associated with an unprecedented economic rebound, does not change this observation, and I will return to this later. A forward-looking euro means new banknotes after 2024, with a new design, and even more secure – there are now only 17 counterfeits per million banknotes, making the euro one of the most secure currencies in the world. It is also a digital euro. The investigation phase for a “digital retail euro” was launched on 1 October last year, for a period of two years.
The aim would be to provide a kind of “digital banknote", which would combine the security of banknotes issued by the central bank with the ease of use and innovation of dematerialised means of payment. The ECB and the Banque de France are working on all the associated challenges, and we have already conducted 9 experiments in Paris on an “interbank” digital currency. They will be continued in 2022, focusing on improving cross-border payments. Indeed, the euro is also a global success: no continent before us had managed to create and introduce a new currency in this way. In this respect, the euro has a political dimension, to consolidate European sovereignty – like the dollar for the United States. Our currency has proven its role in protecting European economies from the turbulence of Covid, and has preserved favourable financing conditions for all economic players, households, SMEs and companies, and states. 1/2  BIS central bankers' speeches  But for the trimaran of the euro to be fully operational, its central hull – the ECB and the single monetary policy – needs to be completed with two floats. A public float with a permanent common fiscal capacity (which does not mean that an additional annual budget is needed), to better cope with macroeconomic shocks. And a private float to promote a better allocation of capital in the euro area. The latter has abundant savings: the surplus of domestic savings over investment structurally exceeds EUR 300 billion.