It is a mark of how much our world has changed that a central banker speaks at the Munich Security Conference on supply chains. A decade ago, this would have seemed like a category error. Today, everyone in this room recognises that trade is as much a security issue as an economic one. Economic interdependence has deepened substantially in recent decades, creating intricate webs of cross-border trade flows. Where this was once seen as a source of stability, it is now a source of vulnerability: to global disruptions like the pandemic and to deliberate weaponisation of dependencies. Eurosystem staff have mapped ... (full story)