So far six such reports have been drawn up and submitted to the Coordination Council for Preparation of the Republic of Bulgaria for Euro Area Membership, headed by the Finance Minister and me. Each of the BNB Deputy Governors is in charge of the relevant area of activity within the BNB's mandate. Contact groups have been formed, with individually named members of the BNB and of the European Central Bank working on specific matters. The absence of a regular government and a clear political commitment to the euro area accession process are a serious obstacle to its progress. This is the reason why we are missing, one by one, important indicative time-frames. This time last year Croatia was well ahead on its way to the euro area. I will give you only one example. On 10 September 2021 the European Commission and the euro area Member States signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Croatia on the production of national euro coins. This Memorandum sets out the actions required for a future euro area Member State to begin producing euro coins. The signing of the Memorandum makes it possible to detail the schedule for the future euro coins of the country, allowing that country to start selecting its euro coin national side designs and to carry out the technical preparations for minting and producing a test series of national euro coins. The Memorandum is a precondition for that country to receive the technical specifications documentation needed for production of national euro coins.
We need a more structural view of QE transmission. In the annex to this paper, we sketch out a very simple monetary framework as a starting point. [16] That monetary framework may help answer important questions about the dynamics of these polices. As we will see in the next section, such a model helps address questions such as: what is the relative importance of the stock of purchases announced versus the flow of purchases conducted? Does the impact of QE fade over time? What influences the relative potency of QE over time? By their nature, event studies cannot answer such questions. I apply this highly stylised model to the current situation in the next section, in order to develop and illustrate some high-level views about the potential conduct and impact of QT. Thinking about QT Just to be clear from the outset, the discussion here is not intended to front-run the MPC’s discussion of asset sales and quantitative tightening. As I have already said, in February the MPC decided to start shrinking its holdings of gilt accumulated via QE by ceasing to reinvest the proceeds of maturing bonds. Bank staff have been commissioned to think about the potential  Page 12  modalities of gilt sales in the future. But no decisions have yet been made about whether or, if so, how to conduct gilt sales. Nor is the discussion here intended to develop a quantitative view of QT transmission.