of the french senate, 14 may, page 3. cf. “ 3rd islamic financial services forum : the european challenge ”, jointly organised with the financial stability institute and hosted by banque de france on islamic liquidity management, paris, 3 march 2009. robin wigglesworth ( 2009 ), “ islamic bonds spark rush of international interest “, financial times, 10 november ; “ has the crisis shown the strengths or the weaknesses of islamic finance? ”, global market monitor, 21 october. norbert hellmann ( 2009 ), “ finanzkrise taucht islamic banking in ein neues licht ”, frankfurt borsen - zeitung, 10 november. durmus yilmaz ( 2009 ), “ islamic finance : during and after the global financial crisis ”, istanbul, 5 october. practically demonstrates the positive diversification effect they could play, contributing therewith to a systemic equilibrium. moreover, islamic finance acts as a natural hedging scheme restricting excessive credit boom in so far as it links the supply of financing ( what would conventional banks call credit ) to the growth rate of the economic activity. thank you very much.

to an end and to be ratified in order to prepare the european union for enlargement. but i don't want to dwell too much on the political aspects and give you the view of the eurosystem in the monetary field. even if we are not taking part in the official negotiations, the eurosystem is tightly involved in cooperation with the central banks of the candidate countries. this process started in 1999 with a high - level seminar organised in helsinki, which defined the five principles on which the european system of central banks would approach its cooperation : 1. first, the principle of competence. that means the eurosystem is involved in all fields falling in its exclusive or shared competence : monetary policy, exchange rate policy, payment systems and financial stability meaning not only oversight of payment systems where the eurosystem has not a shared responsibility, but an exclusive one, but also banking supervision where the eurosystem is of the opinion that it has a shared responsibility just as it is stated in the maastricht treaty ; 2. the second principle is to preserve the eurosystem's primary objective. the eurosystem's involvement in the accession process must be without prejudice to its independence and its primary objective to preserve price stability ; 3. third, the principle of openness. the eurosystem has a positive attitude to the prospect of accession of new eu member states ; 4. fourth, the principle of equality of treatment. the criteria on which we will assess the ability of countries to join the european union and later on the euro should be implemented in a strict and effective manner while also avoiding any discrimination ; 5. finally, the principle of plurality of approaches which means the possibility to choose different paths and ways to join the european union without compromising equality of treatment. the cooperation activities between the eurosystem and the accession countries are intense and have increased considerably between 2000 and 2001. in line with the principle of competence i just mentioned, the fields covered by the cooperation are the following : operational framework for monetary policy, operational framework for foreign exchange policy, economic analysis, internal control and procedures, payment systems, statistical systems, accounting, communication network architecture, legal issues, banknotes, prudential supervision, capital account liberalisation and of course the transition to the adoption to the euro. to give you an idea of the intensity of those joint efforts in all the fields i just have mentioned, let me quantify them by giving you two figures : since 2000, the eurosyst