On Monday 26 March, the EUI hosted an ADEMU-Pierre Werner Chair Lecture by Professor Athanasios Orphanides, a Professor of the Practice of Global Economics and Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management. 

Professor Orphanides has consistently contributed to the ongoing debate on the euro area crisis, which has exposed gaps in the governance of the euro area and put the ECB in a precarious position. Since the beginning of the crisis, euro area governments have experienced greater fiscal stress than governments of advanced economies outside the euro area with weaker fiscal fundamentals. During his lecture, Professor Orphanides explored how this fragility relates to the role of the ECB in exerting fiscal discipline in the euro area, how it can be corrected and, more generally, how the ECB has reacted to the challenges raised by the crisis.