In this respect, the volatility seen on international financial markets in recent weeks serves as a reminder of the need for prudent risk assessment and for the right resources to adapt to a broader and more demanding financial environment. But it is not only the conduct of national authorities that must rise to the challenges entailed by the ever-increasing complexity of our financial systems. At the international level, growing economic and financial integration requires reconsideration of the guiding principles of the multilateral financial institutions, which have hitherto remained perhaps too anchored in the bilateral supervision of national policies, without paying sufficient heed to the increasingly complex links globally. The strengthening of multilateral surveillance, especially in the financial realm, would thereby provide for a more effective contribution by these agencies to embedding international monetary and financial stability. The European environment in 2005 the euro area economy posted a modest average increase in GDP, and one lower than in 2004 and than in the other developed economic areas. Nonetheless, year-on-year growth was on a rising profile throughout 2005, attaining a rate of increase in line with potential in 2006 Q1. The economic performance differed, in fact, from the first to the second half of 2005. In the first six months output was markedly sluggish, the result among other factors of the temporary easing in the momentum of world trade, the strong increase in oil prices and the effects stemming from the appreciation, in the previous years, of the effective exchange rate of the euro.

In addition, drastic reductions of positions in domestic markets by non residents may also introduce excess volatility in the exchange rate markets as investors leave the country. Through these chains of effects, a reversal or even a slowdown in capital inflows may significantly weaken financial stability in the local economy and also potentially in the economies from which the inflows are being financed. A second source of vulnerabilities may arise from cross border flows that provide debt funding to local agents. These can be financial intermediaries or non-financial companies, and the funding can be via deposits or lending. If lending is short term, then this may result in maturity mismatches. If lending is in a foreign currency, then the risk of currency mismatches must also be factored in. The problem arises if local agents do not correctly internalize these risks or if regulation limiting these risks in the financial sector is inadequate. A third source of problems is that capital flows may increase the scale and the complexity of the local financial system, and this expansion may expose weaknesses in the regulatory and supervisory structure. For example, if external funding has not been readily available in the past for certain intermediaries, awareness of currency mismatches can be weak for these institutions or for their customers, and may not be properly addressed in the regulatory framework. Similarly, the availability of new funding may cause credit to rise at a faster pace than that of the supervisory capacity required to monitor its quality.