We are talking today about issues that will shape tomorrow – and while they concern all of us, they affect you even more as young people. We look forward to talking with you at Euro20+,” said Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel in Frankfurt.

On 29 and 30 November, the Bundesbank invited young people between the ages of 18 and 30 from all over Germany and several neighbouring European countries to its sixth Euro20+. 

Held in Frankfurt am Main, the highlights of the event were the two town hall meetings with Bundesbank President Joachim Nagel and Swiss National Bank Chairman Martin Schlegel. Many of the 200 participants took the opportunity to ask questions on topics such as what is currently happening in the economy, the progress being made with the digital transformation, the state of affairs for monetary policy in the euro area and in Switzerland, and pensions. 

Of course, the topic of inflation also came up. Mr Nagel stressed that the ECB Governing Council’s monetary policy had brought the inflation rate in the euro area more or less back to its 2% target. One topic was particularly dear to the Bundesbank President’s heart in the Q&A session, namely greater integration in Europe: More Europe, more integration is important. On that note, Mr Nagel spoke in favour of completing both the capital markets union and the banking union. Participants asked a lot of questions on a wide variety of topics, ranging from the use of the Phillips curve in practice to the US Federal Reserve’s mandate and the ECB’s Transmission Protection Instrument (TPI).

In the town hall meeting with Martin Schlegel, topics centred on economic and monetary policy differences between the euro area and Switzerland, the collapse of the Swiss big bank Credit Suisse, and digital currencies. 

Personal insights from Schlegel and Nagel 

Mr Schlegel and Mr Nagel also gave the young people some personal insights and explained how their career paths led them to be heads of central banks. Mr Nagel told the audience about formative experiences in his professional career and advised attendees to do what they enjoyed. He described this as the first step towards a successful professional life. However, Mr Nagel was unable to guarantee whether that meant someone could directly become Bundesbank President: There’s also an element of luck involved, he remarked. Martin Schlegel pointed out that not everything in his CV looked like natural career progression. The new Swiss National Bank Chairman was once an intern in the research department and has now been the face of the central bank for several months. 

Workshops on current topics

Particularly popular with the attendees were the 11 workshops open to them, which required their active participation. One example was the It’s not the done thing to talk about money! workshop. Bundesbank Vice-President Sabine Mauderer was joined by finfluencer Simon Schöbel to discuss with participants why it is in fact important to talk about money and build up a financial buffer. In group work, different pension schemes were also compared. It is best to start getting to grips with all this as early as possible, Ms Mauderer said. She explained the urgent need for financial literacy, and with it knowledge about how to build up wealth, and how the Bundesbank wants to contribute to financial literacy by providing information and holding events such as this. 

In the Your euro whenever, wherever? The digital money of the future workshop, Bundesbank experts talked about the digital euro and its benefits. Other highlights included talks such as the one held by influencer Sally Lisa Starken, who focused on fake news. There were also a number of workshops on AI, sustainability, financial crises and other central banking topics. 

In the closing Bundesbank Battle, the participants’ final task was to come up with the best arguments on the topics of retirement planning, the digital euro and monetary policy, with hopes of being declared the Battle champion. 

Euro20+ also a hit on social media 

In addition, many of the participants shared their experiences of the event on social media, where the Bundesbank had also shared videos and posts throughout the proceedings. Euro20+ shows how valuable it is to learn, discuss and initiate change together, one participant wrote on LinkedIn, for example. “From workshops that made theory tangible to exciting town hall meetings and exchanges with Bundesbank experts and motivated fellow students – it was an incredibly enriching experience,” another summed up.