3 committees, i. e. the committee of european banking supervisors ( cebs ), the committee of european insurance and occupational pensions supervisors ( ceiops ) and the committee of european securities regulators ( cesr ), signed last thursday a joint protocol that aims to foster cooperation and coordination in their tasks of common interest. 10 as i already mentioned, the eurosystem is of the view that the potential of the existing framework should be fully exploited. furthermore, the review of the lamfalussy approach due by the end of 2007 should provide the opportunity to form a comprehensive judgement about the progress made. i have now discussed eu policies and have spoken about the eurosystem ’ s view on shaping the regulatory and legislative framework. we see the provision of such advice as one contribution we can make to support the process of financial integration. it is also in line with the treaty provision in article 105 that the eurosystem shall support, without prejudice to the objective of price stability, the general economic policies in the community, of which financial integration is a priority objective. lastly, i would like to mention another contribution the eurosystem can make to foster financial integration, which is for the central bank to act as a catalyst for collective private - sector activities. this is a straightforward illustration for the joint effort undertaken by market participants and public authorities, like the eurosystem, to foster financial integration. since competition among private financial agents is also necessary, coordination of interests can be facilitated with the aid of a catalyst. being a central bank, we are also a market participant, having both the necessary knowledge and the numerous contacts with market participants. i would just like to mention the two most important catalyst activities that are ongoing at present, namely the short - term european paper ( step ) initiative as well as the single euro payments area ( sepa ) project. in fact, the step initiative, which i mentioned earlier in my assessment of the degree of integration of the money market, was first discussed at the meetings of the ecb money market contact group by aci – the financial markets association, which has led the initiative since then. the eurosystem ’ s support, together with that of the european commission, for the banking industry ’ s initiative to create the single euro payments area ( sepa ) is another case in point. by 2008 we expect european citizens to be able to make payments throughout the euro area from a single bank account, using a single set of payment instruments, as easily and safely as

that divergence among euro area countries is making it increasingly difficult to set a single monetary policy that fits all of them. he expressed concerns about the sustainability of ever - diverging trends. would you agree with him? there are no ever - diverging trends. there is the concrete case of italy, which is underperforming. but six or seven years ago the underperformers were spain, greece and ireland, and now they are overperformers. it ’ s changed quite a lot. for instance, now in 2019 germany is going to be one of the countries with a lower growth rate. and yet it was the euro area ’ s growth engine two or three years ago. there is not an accumulation of divergences, but situations change. some countries that were underperforming are now overperforming, and vice versa. and this is not going to depend on monetary policy. monetary policy has to take care of price stability and some real factors that can explain inflation levels across the euro area. but it ’ s exactly the same in the 3 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches united states. do you think a single currency area can work in the long term without having a single budget to address shocks, banking problems or competiveness issues? i think the institutional architecture of the euro area has not been finalised at all. we have made some progress with the creation of the european stability mechanism, and we have launched the banking union, but this project is not complete. we have to finish the european deposit insurance scheme ( edis ) and we need to complete the capital markets union. i am fully in favour of having an instrument with a stabilisation capacity. it can take different forms. of the kind french president emmanuel macron is proposing? if you look at what was agreed in the european council, it was a first step in the right direction. but that should not be the steady state of the instrument. it could grow and have a very clear purpose – countercyclical stabilisation. now it ’ s more like a sort of competiveness instrument. we have to share more risk, for sure, if we want to improve the performance of the euro area and reduce the burden of monetary policy because, as i said, monetary policy is not almighty. and there is one element that is going to be key to achieving these steps : trust. you have to trust other countries to behave. but when a country misbe