In January, 200 youths discussed the future of Europe at Euro20+. On 15 and 16 November, the Bundesbank will once again invite 200 motivated young people to come together to address topics such as the future of Europe, digitalisation, economic challenges and running a sustainable economy.

The Bundesbank has tendered an architectural design competition for the implementation of the Bundesbank’s new campus in Frankfurt am Main. The City of Frankfurt am Main and the central bank have agreed that the urban planning concept developed by the firm “Ferdinand Heide Architekten” is permissible under current planning and construction law.

Bundesbank Executive Board member Sabine Mauderer counsels caution when interpreting market signals. “They cannot be taken at face value, but should be treated as the raw material for monetary policy decisions,” she said at an event in Frankfurt.

Households’ real investment return recovered somewhat at the beginning of 2019, improving to a now only marginally negative rate of -0.1%. Viewed in isolation, historically low interest rates continued to depress income, but price gains in securities markets helped increase performance somewhat overall.

Economic output in Germany dipped slightly in the second quarter of 2019. The Bundesbank’s current Monthly Report states that this was primarily due to ongoing weakness in export-oriented industry.

The ECB and the 21 central banks that are signatories of the fourth Central Bank Gold Agreement have decided not to extend the agreement. The first agreement was signed in 1999 with the aim of coordinating the gold sales planned by the central banks.

In the first half of 2019, the Bundesbank recorded approximately 27,600 counterfeit euro banknotes with a nominal value of €1.6 million. Thus, although the incidence of counterfeiting was up compared to the second half of 2018, it is still low overall.

Economic output in Germany is likely to have contracted slightly in the second quarter of 2019 compared with the beginning of the year. According to the current Monthly Report, this is due to the petering out of one-off effects, which had been major drivers of growth in the first quarter. In addition, the downturn in industry continued.

The emergence of new shadow sectors in the financial system through stablecoins must be prevented. This is what the G7 finance ministers and central bank governors have called for at their meeting in Chantilly, just outside of Paris.

In its Annual Economic Report, the Bank for International Settlements calls for structural reforms, fiscal policy and macroprudential measures to play a greater role in ensuring sustainable growth. The report states that “monetary policy cannot be the engine of economic growth”.