Speech by Frank Elderson, Member of the Executive Board of the ECB and Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of the ECB, at the University of Cyprus, Nicosia

Nicosia, 21 November 2024

When the President of the ECB, Christine Lagarde, spoke at the Central Bank of Cyprus in March 2022, she emphasised the importance of finding resilience in times of uncertainty.^[1] And indeed, at that point in time the resilience of the European economy was being tested to the limit. We were just coming out of a global pandemic and adjusting to Russia’s unjustified invasion of Ukraine, which had triggered an energy crisis in Europe. The combination of these two factors resulted in a surge in inflation.^[2] The annual increase in the general price level of goods and services in the euro area peaked at 10.6% in October 2022, and Cyprus had already reached this peak in July. This was far above the ECB Governing Council’s 2% target for inflation over the medium term, which we see as best maintaining our…