 Ladies and gentlemen and especially dear students let me express my congratulations to all the students here for reaching the stage, this stage of the Generation Euro Students Award competition. It's an incredible achievement and you should all be proud of yourselves. Bravo, Bravo. This gathering is an important opportunity for us to continue a dialogue with you. You are the winners of our Euro Area-wide Competition on Monetary Policy, which is now in its seventh year. The ECB also organizes other initiatives, let me say a word later on, to engage with young people. We have the ECB Youth Dialogues and competitions such as the Euro Video Challenge and the Young Economist Sessions at the Sintra Conference. Sintra is a conference that we do annually on a variety of themes that go around monetary policy, macroeconomics, and so far my impression of course I'm biased has been a success. I'm also aware that my colleagues from the national banks organize events and dialogues with students and schools at national level, which basically tells you one thing, you are very important and you are very important because you are our future. You are European future but you are our future and that's why the ECB, the National Central Banks, really give you a lot of attention and get a lot from you. So I trust that in taking part in the competition you've been able to find out more about what we do at the ECB, why we do it, and how our monetary policy works. You know it seems obvious that you should know what we do at the ECB or what people do in their national central banks. But as a matter of fact if you do sort of poll, if you do polls, you ask people around, you'd be surprised by the amount of confusion that people have. For example, lots of people about one third think that central banks are like other banks. They are by and large not very different from what other banks do. Now you'll be the selected category that you will know that the ECB is a central bank and central banks are different from banks. And even more importantly through this exercise you actually got to have at a very young age, got to have a European perspective. You understood what is still really missing from lots of people who still think in terms of national borders, national states. It's very important of course but it's not the only reality that we're living through. In fact the European perspective becomes much more important as time passes. Why is that? Well because there are many challenges that are in fact super national by their very nature. That is to say you can't really respond to these challenges. You can't really address the problems at national level if they are super national. Just let me give you an example. Security. Security is not something that people can actually address only at national level. We're seeing this every unfortunately very frequently through various terrorist actions and other things like that. Another one is the same. I mean everything it's economics now is basically global. So it's even beyond the being only European actually is all over the place. So the more we integrate the better will be placed to address economic issues of this nature. Think about defense. Just does it make sense today saying that countries are able to defend themselves against global challenges? Well less and less so. Think about another challenge. Migration. Migration is not a problem of one country. It is a problem, a challenge and an opportunity for a group of countries and in this case the European, Eurozone countries are certainly called to respond to this challenge. So all this means that to have a European perspective has become essential to understand today's problems and the possible possible solutions. So the key question that you will be asked more and more in the future is what can we achieve together? So we count on you to embark on this long journey. We invite you to be our ambassadors to continue the conversation on Europe in your schools and cities and with your relatives and friends. You will have an important role to play in tomorrow's Europe, but that role, that responsibility start today. You give us not only hope for a better future, but you also inspire us to continue our work. So we should be the ones to be thankful to you. Finally, let me express a special thank you to the teachers here for making this event happen and for the wonderful guidance and support you have given to your students. And let me also add a thank to some people who are not here probably, which is your families and the support that your families must have given to you for you to be able to have such to reach such a target to have such an achievement today. So you are very lucky to be so well taught even if maybe you haven't realized it or even if your teachers might not be aware of how much good they've given to you or even if your families are not aware of much good. After all, one is a father or a mother and it doesn't think or she doesn't think to how much good they do to their children. Just comes with that, being a father or a mother. So again, let me congratulate you and congratulate everyone has been involved in your success. So let's now open the discussion. Thank you. So I'm asked to come here, become more human. Just as last year, first of all, welcome. And just as last year we're going to have a Q&A session. We have received quite a few questions from all of you in the various schools. We selected a few and there were lots of creativity in the questions. There was also lots of creativity overall. And when we're done with this Q&A, we'll also show a little video to show everything that you've done. But let me just kickstart this and move on to the questions. And I'd like to invite Nicola Murasco of the ECB's winning team from St George International School in Luxembourg to ask the first question. My question is, how do you think the EU will evolve in the next five, 10 and 50 years? Thank you. Well, I mean, it's not easy to answer this question because I have no crystal ball. But what I can say is how should Europe, in which areas, and how should Europe evolve in the coming years to be able to address the problems that I just mentioned? And the answer is just one, more integration. Because the challenges, as I said before, are more and more to an increasing degree, super national. And it's quite clear that, for example, take another challenge I didn't mention, take the climate challenge. And it doesn't make any sense to say I'll be addressing this problem at national level. So much so that we have the World Agreement, the Paris Agreement about the world climate challenge. And the same thing at the lower level, the continental level now happens for many of the problems we are having today. And now, this time is a kind of strange time to actually respond to your question. Because we are actually passing through a difficult time to decide that we have to have more integration in order to cope with the challenges. In other words, we know at a rational level that we need to be more integrated to cope with these challenges that I listed before. At the same time, at an emotional level, and even to some extent, since politics is made by emotions too, at a political level, this is a difficult time. And it's a difficult time because this continent had just come out of what is arguably the most serious crisis since the 1930s. And for some of the countries of the Eurozone, as a matter of fact, this crisis has been worse in the 1930s. And when crisis happened, the crisis of this nature happened, there is a sort of inherent tendency to be inward looking, to retreat within national borders, as if such retreat would be the answer. But that's what happens. And so you see different reactions, for example, to migration issues. You see different reactions across nations, member states of the Eurozone even, different reactions to security challenges. And in some of the political parties around, you see, we've seen a somewhat increased, though not yet triumphant rise of the so-called populist movements, populist-nationalist movements. So it's not, now, should this cloud the way we view the future? And the answer is no, because there is nothing we can do about that. These challenges are supranational, and there is no way, no matter what our current emotions could be, that we can cope with these challenges at national level. And now, more modestly, since you have a central banker that speaks, what is needed here is the monetary level. We have to deepen our economic and monetary union to fix the fragilities that have characterized the economic and monetary union and, in a sense, have contributed to having, to a worsening of the economic crisis that we have just experienced. Thank you. So the next question comes from Lukas Lengsfeld from the Internat Schule Schloss Hansenberg in Germany. So our question for you is, do you believe that the abolishment of cash money in the near future is a achievable goal, and if so, do you support such a notion? Thank you. Now, we don't want to abolish cash. Cash, at least this part of the world likes cash. I mean, everybody likes cash, but this part of the world especially likes cash. And so we have no intention. We basically, we see what the citizens' wishes are as the best way to carry out their transactions, their payments, and we take them into account, of course. And so we continue to issue and print banknotes. We've kind of slowed down the production of the highest denomination banknotes, the 500 euro banknotes about a year ago. It didn't stop, by the way, but only the production starting with, I think it's 2019, will stop. And it's going to be replaced by 200 euro notes, 100 euro notes, just to show you that the abolition or the perspective stopping, halting a production of the 500 is not due to the fact that we don't like cash. It's simply due to the fact that these high denomination banknotes are mostly used by criminals, by all the people who want to store a large amount of wealth and not be known to do so. And all countries, by and large, most countries at least, have started moving along the same way. Having said that, it's true that there have been very interesting developments in new technologies. You heard about bitcoins. You heard about ledger technology, digital DLT. You heard about other, and now we are looking at these developments. We've got to distinguish here bitcoins are not coins. Bitcoins are mostly assets. Bitcoins are not safe. Bitcoins don't have a central bank backing. The bitcoin, a normal currency, has a central bank backing its production and its value. So a euro is a euro today, and it's going to be a euro tomorrow. A bitcoin is no. Its certain value today has different value tomorrow. But having said again, having said that, there are various very interesting potential developments that central banks may want to look into and understand. And all central banks, at least the largest central banks in the world, are actually looking, especially at DLT technology. And we also have joint programs with bank Japan and national central banks in the euro zone are also looking on their own. And there are groups coordinating. So basically what's happening is what happens in any new development. People try to put together their forces, their strengths, and see whether progress is advisable and in which direction. So now I'd like to ask the next question that comes from Claudia Lopez from the IS. Camilo José Sela in Spain. And you have the next question. Good morning. We would like to know if you enjoy what you do for a living, and if it is very stressful to cover and do easy V. Thank you. Well, I certainly enjoy. I certainly enjoy what I do. No, no doubt, no doubt about that. Obviously, what happens is that it's the decisions that we take, and I have to say we, because I only chair a governing council. A council, governing council is a group of the governors of the central banks of the euro zone. And so what we do has a big impact. Even words, even adjectives, even I don't go as far as saying commas, but just, but anyway, we have a big impact on people's welfare, on citizens' wealth, on well-being, and to understand this big impact means to have also a big responsibility. So it's enjoyment, certainly, with a big sense of responsibility. And frankly, I've been very lucky to actually work with this group of colleagues that is around the governing council today. They are excellent professionals, very competent. And it's been part of the enjoyment comes also from the fact of working with this set of people of such high quality. So we're now going to continue with the next question from Dara Moran from Gonzaga College Dublin in Ireland. Thank you. Do you find it concerning that inflation rates remain subdued despite the continued use of several non-standard monetary policies and low interest rates? Thank you. As a matter of fact, I addressed this issue in a speech I gave in Dublin not long ago. Because it's a big question. It's a big question. Any time we can remember from when we had recessions and we looked at how the labor market would work, how the economy would work, and then we would look at how wages would respond and then how inflation would respond to increases in wages. And I would say that almost all the episodes that we have looked at in the past would show that wages and prices would respond to the improvements in the economy much faster, much faster than they ever did this time. So perhaps we had a very long crisis, very, very serious, very severe. And this has affected these mechanisms of response so that basically now we've seen a significant improvement in the economy, a significant improvement in the labor market. We're talking about millions, almost four millions of jobs created in the last three and a half, four years, which is more than at any time. And still, we don't see much of an increase in nominal wages. So we asked ourselves, now it's been quite a time, almost two years, we've asked ourselves, why is this so? Why is it so slow in responding? Well, some of it had to do with the fact that the sluck in the labor market, the amount of unemployed people in the labor market was bigger than what was currently measured at the time. Some of it had to do with the fact that some of these jobs have been created. They are not top quality jobs. They are part-time, they are temporary, which means that people who are getting newly employed after perhaps a long time, a long spell of unemployment, they don't, they're really not looking for higher wages immediately. They first look for more stability, job stability. Another reason was certainly that after so many years of low inflation and if not deflation at some stretch as many years ago, when people start negotiating for higher wages, they look backward and they basically look at history of prices that wouldn't go up. And so they say they basically, they're not looking for higher wages immediately. So, but there are, there is a variety of reasons for this. But the point is that the conclusion that we drew is that all these factors, oh by the way, another important factor is so-called globalization. The fact that the new way of selling things, the new electronic digital retail framework in which we now make most of our purchases is one where we compare prices immediately. And that has increased enormously competition in the retail sector, which is also creating a downward pressure on prices or at least a downward pressure on inflation rates. So, there is a variety of reasons. The conclusion, however, that we drew here at ECB is that all these factors are not eternal, are not permanent. At some point, we know that wages will respond and therefore, nominal wages and therefore, and therefore, inflation rates will respond to the improvement in the economy, which is in front of us. And so, we are confident that inflation will converge to our objective, which by the way, it's an objective defined as an inflation rate which is close but below two percent. So, we are confident that this is going to happen. It's already in a sense, it's already happening. We are moving forward on that time. So, we are moving towards our objective. Elisabetta Dattori from the Institute of Technical and Economic Einstein Italy, you have the next question. Good afternoon. How much, how important do you think is, sorry, how important do you think, sorry, how important is the awareness of economic events for ECB? And why did you start the generation euro students awards competition? Well, I kind of touched on this before in my introductory remarks. What this event tells a few things. First of all, it tells that you are very good. It says that you are very good because you won an important prize. Second also says that we want to communicate what we do to you and to a broader public and to the broader public opinion. So, I also mentioned other events that both we do here in Frankfurt and the national central banks do in their respective countries along the same line. Communication of what we do, communication of what we are in Europe today is for us of utmost importance. And third also gives us the possibility as part of communication of explaining what we do. Much of the, if you look around and you see a world which is basically crossed by lots of discussions, confrontations, sometimes anger as well. But if you ask yourself, why? Well, part of the answer is really confusion, is misperception, is lack of communication, lack of explanation. And that's what we are trying to fill this void. I should be very careful here. We are trying to fill this void. We are trying to do our best as far as this is concerned. But there's so much to do about that. One can always do more. We've got three more questions to go through. Just conscious a little bit of time. The next one comes from Katia Sousa of the Lycée Hubert-Claymont in Luxembourg. Let me get the mic here. My question is, why did you decide to start a career in the financial sector? Thank you. Thank you. But why are you, looks like you are very interested in my personal questions. You see, central bankers are not supposed to speak about themselves. It's something, it's a, it's a, it's an unknown world yourself. But, but, but no, but basically the, I mean, I kind of, because of also upbringing, I was always interested in economic things and economic matters. And so naturally, and I liked, I, even when I was very young, I liked this sort of stuff. So readings and, and so then by the time I was 18, it was natural for me to go into economics. And then from there, I went to MIT for my PhD. And from there I moved back to the Italian University where I would teach economics, monetary economics, monetary theory and international. And so, and then, and then from there on. But, and so it's possibly the sort of things I was, I was introduced at an early age, certainly the encouragement that I got from my family first, my parents. And second, some key teachers I had in the course of my life, which actually encouraged me to continue along this path. And some other key figures in the, in the, in the, in the succession of things that by and large kept me in this line of activity. So it's, you know, you make these choices because you like certain things and because there are certain key figures in your life that help you to stay with that, with that line of thinking. I've now got a question from Portugal, Daniel Augusto from the Escuela Segundaria de Meme Martins. Thank you. So what are the consequences that the new taxes on steel and aluminum importation applied by the USA and the recidivants regarding Russia and the United Kingdom can have an erosion economy and obviously in the CB monetary policy? This is, you know, we discuss about these issues nowadays quite frequently in our governing council discussions. When we ask ourselves, what are the risks that, that we look at when we come to our, for example, how, how the eurozone will grow in the future? Things are okay now, but what could threaten the sense of finally having come out of the, of the big depression, a big recession? And now it's, it's a time and it's been the since the first time in a long time that we can say that most of the risks are now external. They're not internal and they, we call them geopolitical risks. And they have to do exactly with the sort of things you mentioned. The, this sort of tariffs, tariffs development, the Brexit, the leaving of one country, one country leaves the European Union, what's happened, what's happening between the eurozone, Europe and Russia and, and other what's happening in the Middle East. So there are, there are many, many of these developments and now specifically the effect of, so far, of tariffs that have been imposed or been announced to be imposed. These effects are unbig, direct effects are not big. But of course, we have to see how long this exchange of, of, we've seen only the first round. One country has put some tariffs, another country responded. So the, in the end, the key issue is retaliation, how big will be the response of countries one to, to each other. And again, there is a memory that it's not really very comforting when the Great Depression started in the 1930s. All countries actually, in the very beginning of the depression, all countries reacted with protectionist measures. In other words, putting tariffs, very high tariffs, and in the world trade collapsed and made the depression even worse. I don't think we are there, fortunately. I hope we will not get there because we learned a lot in the meantime. And so it's, hopefully it's unlikely, but still we have to take that factor into account. But there's another more subtle channel through which these tariffs or these trade exchanges can affect the economy. And, and I would say we have to be, to be especially mindful of this channel, which is the confidence channel. If, if, in other words, if, if countries start to put tariffs on their own, on the other countries exports, then if just put yourself in the shoes of an entrepreneur who has to decide about an investment, a big investment in that sector, well, he'll wait. He'll wait, at least, at the very least, he'll wait and see what's going to happen, which means less investment. And if this, this effect on confidence can be very important in, in the coming, in the coming months, that's something we have to really look at. So now we have the final question. Medica Lundberg from Maryland, Lucille in Finland. Go ahead, please. Thank you. What's the most memorable economic event that you've, that happened during your time as the president of the ECB? Well, fortunately, you said economic event, so it's not, so we can narrow down a little, but it's very difficult to, I wouldn't say that it hasn't been an event, specific event, would say like you make a big scientific discovery and you have your white apron say, wow, I found something that's, no, I don't think in economics actually works that way. So you have, what I could say is I remember key, key economic developments that are, stay in my memory more than others, not, not events as such one day. And one certainly was the, one was the sense of a looming crisis that was about to strike the eurozone. This is in the 2010 and I would say even, even through the 2011. And then the going out, the beginning, the first steps to go out of the crisis, to come out of the crisis. And that was the creation of the SSM, the banking union that was decided in June 2012. And the later developments of that year, including the OMT that was decided by the, by the ECB, by the governing council of the ECB, which basically told markets that they were wrong about going against the euro, that they were wrong thinking that the euro might collapse at some day, that the euro was irreversible. And the answer to that, to that point, was a turning point for our cycle, for the business cycle in the eurozone. So it's more than an economic event. There are basically two economic, two sets of economic developments that I remember. One is what our leaders did at an institutional, political level. And the other one was the, our response at the, in front of the crisis, the ECB, the governing council, the ECB response against the crisis. So thank you. Thank you very much, President.