collapse of the insurance subsidiaries of the cl financial group is perhaps the most widely cited example of the systemic importance of these cross - border financial groups. cartac has already done some good work in assisting in the drafting of financial sector legislation by bringing a wider international perspective. the centre ’ s assistance to the central banks in producing a regional financial stability report is anticipated to be of great benefit in assisting the region to diagnose financial vulnerabilities and develop corrective strategies ex ante to forestall potential future crises. one aspect that is often unheralded is cartac ’ s work on macroeconomic statistics. indeed, many countries have severe institutional problems that inhibit the gathering, accurate processing and timely dissemination of data, creating a weak base for policy design. in a difficult and sometimes frustrating environment, cartac has been able to help in providing bis central bankers ’ speeches consultants and training local staff to improve statistics on consumer prices, the balance of payments and national accounts. trinidad and tobago considers itself a strong collaborator of the institution and wholeheartedly supports its work and vision. for our part, we have benefitted from technical assistance / consultancy support in the financial sector as well as fiscal and debt management. we continue to receive support to strengthen the price and balance of payments statistics and just last week we hosted a consultant who is assisting us to develop and implement a plan to rebase our quarterly gross domestic product estimates. our semi - annual bank stress testing exercises, which we have done over the past two and a half years, was developed with a cartac consultant, who earlier this year revisited our shores and worked with us on upgrading the test parameters and methodology. staff at the central bank and at government ministries gained valuable training on macroeconomic issues and policy design. this is a cartac contribution which we consider extremely important in helping to develop the capacity of our future policy makers. we also commend cartac for organizing the summer internship program – we have had the good fortune of having some excellent interns and we will continue to participate in this initiative. as with any technical assistance program, we recognize that sustainability must be a major objective. as we discuss the recent activities of the centre and the way forward during today ’ s proceedings, we should keep constantly in mind the need to develop programs in a way that would progressively transfer the knowledge and expertise to recipient countries. in this way cartac ’ s contribution would be all the more durable. moreover, we should utilize as far as possible the avenues

##gs of some of the anti - crisis measures and the inflexibility of budgeting processes are also at the origin of the strong deterioration of debt levels. spread of t en - year government bonds vis - a - vis germany basispoints jul / 08 jan / 09 es jul / 09 ie jan / 10 jul / 10 it jan / 11 pt jul / 11 gr source : ecb. a focus on the measures with the shortest implementation lags as well as a regular reassessment of the adequacy of the size of the respective fiscal stimulus might have saved substantial funds in several countries and put them in a better position to weather the next crisis. we need to get back to the rules - based fiscal system that for decades proved to be best suited for providing long - term stability. an improved fiscal framework and well - functioning supervisory and warning procedures in europe are even more important as recent years have taught us that we cannot rely on financial market mechanisms as the penalizing factor for bad fiscal behavior. one week before lehman brothers went bankrupt, rating agencies still rated it as “ investment grade. ” markets responded far too late and then overreacted. currently, we are in a situation of self - fulfilling prophecies where major rating agencies can actually trigger a crisis just by announcing it. – the final lesson i should like to draw from the experience of these past years is that we need to rethink the role of rating agencies. the liberalization of financial markets, which enhanced the influence of commercial ratings, is irreversible. monetary policy, however, needs to reduce its dependence on assessments made by rating agencies. in that respect, the approach of the bis central bankers ’ speeches u. s. federal reserve might be a good example for europe. furthermore, competition among rating agencies needs to be reinforced and supervised. 3. it is up to politics to let the euro unfold its full benefits we are currently back in a situation of high economic uncertainty and mounting pressures on the financial markets. in view of a sheer endless sequence of emergency meetings and new crisis measures, some people are beginning to lose confidence in the common currency and in international policy cooperation. i would therefore like to add a few thoughts on the global role of the common european currency and on the benefits the euro offers to euro area citizens. in the first years after the introduction of the euro, the citizens of the euro area profited from having a common currency in many respects. in spite of a series of