Allow me succinctly to review some of the work and recommendations under way in different fora to palliate the structural weaknesses highlighted so starkly by the current crisis and to lay the foundations for a new and more solid international financial structure. From the banking regulation perspective, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision is entrusted with implementing the recommendations made by the Financial Stability Board, along with the plan of action that arose from the November 2008 G20 meeting, which was subsequently ratified at the April 2009 meeting. The work programme the Basel Committee has set itself covers various areas, including most notably the improvement of asset risk assessment and management by banks, the adjustments needed to the eligibility of capital instruments, the new requirements for liquidity risk, and matters concerning transparency and market reporting. In the supervisory domain I should like to highlight the so-called Larosière Report, drafted by a group of high-level independent experts which was set up on the request of the President of the European Commission. Their mandate was to draw up proposals for improving supervisory arrangements in the European Union. Included in the group was an ex-Director General of our institution. The Report contains 31 recommendations whose ultimate aim is to reduce the likelihood of a crisis such as the present one recurring and, should it recur, to ensure its costs are minimal. I shall focus, however, only on those recommendations bearing directly on the structure of financial supervision in Europe in its microprudential and macroprudential facets.

Jean-Claude Trichet: Monetary policy in 2003 Introductory statement by Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, Governor of the Bank of France, at the Forum Institut für Management, Frankfurt, 2 December 2002. *  *  *  Introduction Ladies and Gentlemen, It is for me great pleasure to participate in this “International Forum on interest rates” and to exchange views with an audience of prominent players on financial markets. I welcome the initiative of the Forum Institut für Management. In promoting discussions on challenging issues between market practitioners and economists, this contributes to the attractiveness and spirit of financial markets in the euro area. I would like to open these discussions with some remarks on structural issues that one should keep in mind when examining the prospects for financial markets in Europe. Indeed, by achieving its primary objective of pursuing price stability in a medium-term perspective, the monetary policy defined by the Governing Council of the ECB lays the foundations of the success of euro. But these foundations are also embedded in a far-reaching structural dynamic involving notably three components: •  financial integration,  •  financial stability,  •  and the prospects of European Union enlargement. I would like to make a few remarks on the challenges and opportunities arising from these three – interrelated– topics. 1  Financial integration  1.1  As regards financial integration, the European monetary union has in many respects modified the way in which financial institutions organise their daily business in the euro area.