by clarifying the utilization of instruments for macro - prudential purposes, they contribute to avoid potential conflicts with the micro - prudential authority related to the competence to activate instruments, due to the similarity of tools between the two policies. in conclusion... although the challenges with the implementation of macro - prudential policy are still substantial and no crisis is identical to the previous one, i am confident that the regulatory framework is now in a much better shape to tackle systemic financial risks than it was a few years ago. as in many aspects macro - prudential policy is still a work in progress, improvements may arise from several fronts. the significant amount of research being undertaken to better identify systemic risks will most likely bear fruits. in the meantime, the limitations concerning risk measurements can be reduced by combining information from different models or indicators. the great variety of risk measures provided by various models can capture different perspectives of existent risks, minimizing the relevance of each model ’ s shortcomings. greater experience with the application of instruments will provide more information about their transmission mechanisms and possible unintended effects. meanwhile, regulators could reduce the uncertainty concerning the impact of policy measures by taking advantage of the existent complementarities among different instruments. i believe that these developments will gradually confer more robustness to macro - prudential policy, enhancing policy accountability and credibility. bis central bankers ’ speeches

political project europe is a memory, a key to understanding our own past. nations are a construct of man, not a natural reality. they reflect the social a priori that implies that our consciousness and our knowledge are socially constituted. many nations were even the product of the action of a state. there were savoyards, bretons, gascons before there were french and bavarians and prussian before there were germans. at the time of the french revolution half of the population did not speak french and only republican public schools completed the formation of frenchmen. a form of civic community among strangers was somewhat artificially created to shape several european nation - states. nothing proves that a similar process, certainly longer and more difficult, cannot occur at the european level. this does not imply that europe could become a nation, not even as montesquieu pretended “ une nation composee de plusieurs ” ( “ a nation composed of many ” ). europeans are too diverse and too self - critical for that to happen. we belong nevertheless to two societies, our own and the european one as the essential background for our rationalist, universal values. in his famous vienna address in 1935 on the existential crisis of europe, edmund husserl underlines the fact that philosophical reason is the “ original phenomenon that characterizes europe ”. and his conclusion was : “ the existential crisis of europe has only two outcomes : either europe will disappear in becoming ever more distant from its own rational signification, that is its vital sense, and will sink in the hatred of the spirit and in barbarity ; or europe will be reborn from the philosophical spirit as a result of a heroism of reason that will overcome naturalism ”. we know very well what happened at those dramatic times and how we could never again trust reason the same way after the war. we live now in so - called postmodern times, which value more the sceptical side of reason. it is no surprise then that the greatest contemporary portuguese thinker, eduardo lourenco, who has lived and taught in germany, brazil and mostly in france, a true “ good european ”, spoke in 1989 about european culture as “ a culture of inquietude, a culture of anguish and doubt, that is to say, a culture of radical defiance of the gods as figures of certainty. and above all a culture of defiance to the being never defined or pacified that we are as human beings ”. this vision of louren