Germany gained unification in exchange for the euro. The southern countries (Italy, France and Spain) gained the stability of the German mark because they were unable to create such a currency at home. And those who were tied to the German mark long before the euro was created (Austria and the Netherlands) simply remained bound to Frankfurt after the Eurozone was established, only the Bundesbank building was replaced all of a sudden by the ECB building. There’s no basic euro story like this in the Czech Republic. Why should we try to create one artificially? Our story is one of maintaining monetary stability across regimes and governments and of keeping the koruna as the name of our currency continuously since the time of Emperor Franz Joseph (his monetary reform established a new currency – the crown, or koruna – throughout the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in 1892) regardless of totalitarianism and the horrors of the 20th century. Neither the Nazis, nor the Communists had any tendency to rename the currency and kept this old monarchist name despite otherwise changing basically everything, and for the worse. Our country – unlike the rest of the Central Europe – has never experienced hyperinflation in its modern history, and this monetary stability has always served the entrenched mentality of small Czech savers well. Domestic scepticism about the euro – that’s our authentic Czech story. 6.
And operational reforms designed to address the deficiencies in the Bank’s pre-crisis lending tools and flag 5  clearly that the Bank was ‘open for business’ , have left the Bank capable of lending to a wide range of banks and non-banks, against many different types of collateral, at lower prices, and through a broad range of facilities. As of 2016, members of the Bank’s Sterling Monetary Framework – our main liquidity-providing tool – had pre-positioned over £ of collateral with us, including 30% of the UK’s total stock of household mortgage loans. Only a fifth of that collateral had been drawn against, through the Funding for Lending Scheme and other Bank facilities. Even after accounting for the Bank’s sizeable haircuts, that leaves well over £ of available credit: a much higher proportionate level of contingent exposure for the Bank than typically incurred by commercial banks through undrawn facilities. So our balance sheet may expand in both scale and riskiness at times of heightened liquidity stress: the Bank of England’s role as financial firefighter has shifted permanently upwards (Chart 5). 5  See http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Documents/news/2012/cr2winters.pdf; and the Bank’s new framework at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/markets/Documents/money/publications/liquidityinsurance.pdf. The reforms are summarised in a speech by the Governor at http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/publications/Pages/speeches/2013/690.aspx. 6  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  6  The third key driver behind our new risk framework has been the strong public demand for greater accountability and transparency from central banks since the financial crisis.