fixed and the banking union completed. otherwise, market participants will continue to fear that local vulnerabilities could eventually spread and destabilise the european banking system before all the firefighting tools are ready to be deployed. the aim must be to move forward swiftly on both risk reduction and risk sharing. risk sharing involves both the public and private sectors, for example by ensuring the same level of deposit protection through a european deposit insurance scheme, but also by continuing to build a capital markets union in europe. the eu and emu also need to face up to their institutional weaknesses. on average, people ’ s trust in both national and eu political institutions is very low. as regards the national level, we know from the economic literature that strong institutions are crucial for sustainable economic growth and governance indicators suggest that there is room for improvement in many member states. as regards the european level, the gap between people ’ s expectations and the eu ’ s institutional setup is widening : • first, the perceived legitimacy of the eu remains low. the eu is not regarded as “ efficient ” and only a minority of citizens feel that their voice counts in the eu. • second, opinion polls suggest that citizens are not opposed to european decisionmaking. specifically, they want the eu to concentrate on their key concerns, notably to protect them better from economic and security risks, and to provide solutions. when responding to these expectations, the eu and emu face however two challenges : • the first has to do with subsidiarity : it should be made clearer where the eu has an advantage over member states in terms of exercising competence and where not. a better demarcation of competences between the european and national level is desirable – but not easy. loose coordination at european level may give the impression that a competence has been passed to the european level, when in fact it continues to be exercised by member states. the result tends to be that the eu gets blamed for apparently seeking to interfere in national affairs when in fact it does not effectively have the power to do so. it should not be so surprising that in such situations the practical result is a lack of coherent action across the eu. this, in my view, means that responsibilities and accountability lines should be more clearly defined and assigned, as europe has done with the single monetary policy and the creation of the european central bank. • the other challenge has to do with intergovernmentalism. the rationale for the intergovernmental approach is to ensure that decisions

in larger numbers after sepa direct debit has also been launched in november 2009. will the migration process be quick enough by itself or does it require an extra push? research has shown that a long period of maintaining dual systems is costly for all. so what will make industry and / or customers stop using the old products and switch to sepa? you will remember that the sepa process was only taken seriously by industry in reaction to an ec regulation. 5 although supporters of a sepa migration end - date seem to be in the majority, opposition to the concept is not negligible. however, we have to realise that sepa is not just about making life easier for european citizens and companies by removing obstacles to cross - border payments. sepa is also about removing barriers to the single market, introducing more competition to the payments industry and speeding up innovation. the eurosystem will continue its efforts to foster a general understanding among stakeholders that setting a realistic but ambitious end - date for migration to sct and sdd is a necessary step in order to reap the benefits of sepa. ten years after the introduction of the euro as the single currency, it is high time to complete the introduction of the euro in the field of single payment instruments. sepa governance in connection with the migration challenge, the question arises as to the future governance of the sepa project. so let me talk about this now. in the sixth sepa progress report, we suggested that improvements may be needed to the overall governance of sepa. to be clear, i am not speaking about the governance of the epc itself. improvements in sepa governance may be needed to foster the process towards a truly integrated retail payments market in europe. these improvements are related, in particular, to stakeholder involvement, transparency and the sepa migration progress. is market self - regulation sufficient to find solutions for these issues? the eurosystem – together with the european commission – recognises that a new, overarching body, consisting of a broad range of stakeholders, could tackle and resolve issues that are slowing the realisation of sepa. but i want to repeat that this body would not replace the current arrangements. the epc would remain responsible for the design of payment services. the new body, by contrast, would focus entirely on identifying key issues of concern to public authorities and other stakeholders. moreover, it would define priorities and promote action. in addition, it would work on fostering a common understanding among users