important decisions is also likely to be reduced in other fields beside monetary policy. if sweden were to refrain from joining the euro area at all, there would be a risk of being marginalised as an outsider. the preparations what progress has been made in the move to emu? the work of preparing for stage three is now in full swing in every eu body and all the member states. a green paper on the practical arrangements for a changeover to a single currency was presented by the commission in may 1995 and the european council, meeting in madrid in december, adopted a changeover scenario which fixed the timetable for the main decisions. it was agreed that stage three of emu is to start on 1st january 1999 and that, in the light of which member states fulfil the convergence criteria on the basis of statistics for 1997, as early as possible in 1998 the council is to confirm which countries will participate in the european currency area. on 1st january 1999 exchange rates are to be locked and responsibility for monetary policy is to be transferred to the ecb. the euro is to be introduced as an independent currency and all - bis review 41 / 1997 monetary policy transactions are to be in euro. for a time the national currencies will continue to circulate alongside the euro but legally they will be one and the same currency. if this seems odd, remember that sweden's currency, for example, can be expressed in kronor as well as ore. euro, however, will not be available for our wallets from 1st january 1999 ; euro banknotes and coins are to come into circulation on 1 january 2002 at the latest. that will initiate a massive exchange of existing national banknotes and coins. by 1st july 2002 at the latest the krona will cease to be legal tender, though of course the riksbank will continue to exchange kronor for euro. which countries will be included? the eu countries are now striving to fulfil the economic criteria for participation in the euro area. this is being accompanied by strenuous political efforts to remove any remaining obstacles. today i can only say that it is not until the spring of 1998 that we will actually know which countries will be establishing the union. the emi and the commission will each be publishing a report and the commission will issue recommendations on which countries should participate. on the basis of these reports and recommendations, the opinions of the european parliament and the national parliaments are to be heard, which is expected to occur in

. this also applies to the cpi, but here the difference is smaller compared with the nier and the consensus panel. this does not mean that we have not occasionally made considerable forecasting errors. but the errors are not so systematic that there is reason to believe they are due to inadequate forecasting methods. and nor does this mean that we cannot or do not wish to become even better. we are constantly working to improve our methods. in some areas we need to work extra hard to improve our forecasting performance. one such area is productivity. it is important that we continue to regularly assess monetary policy, and particularly with regard to our forecasts, both in our annual assessments and in other ways. this is necessary both to be able to gain better knowledge of which variables are difficult to forecast and to see where it is necessary to develop methods and analysis. a major advantage of publishing our forecasts is that external experts can also evaluate us. thank you for inviting me here today! figure 1. gdp outcomes and forecasts annual percentage change mar - 00 mar - 01 mar - 02 mar - 03 mar - 04 mar - 05 mar - 06 mar - 07 sources : statistics sweden and the riksbank figure 2. employment outcomes and forecasts annual percentage change 4, 0 4, 0 3, 0 3, 0 2, 0 2, 0 1, 0 1, 0 0, 0 0, 0 - 1, 0 - 1, 0 mar - 01 mar - 02 mar - 03 mar - 04 mar - 05 mar - 06 mar - 07 sources : statistics sweden and the riksbank figure 3. cpix outcomes and forecasts annual percentage change 3, 5 3, 5 3, 0 3, 0 2, 5 2, 5 2, 0 2, 0 1, 5 1, 5 1, 0 1, 0 0, 5 0, 5 0, 0 0, 0 - 0, 5 mar - 00 - 0, 5 mar - 01 mar - 02 mar - 03 mar - 04 mar - 05 mar - 06 mar - 07 sources : statistics sweden and the riksbank figure 4. productivity outcomes and forecasts annual percentage change 5, 0 5, 0 4, 0 4, 0 3, 0 3, 0 2, 0 2, 0 1, 0 1, 0 0, 0 0, 0 - 1, 0 - 1, 0 - 2, 0 mar - 01 mar - 02 mar - 03 mar - 04 mar - 05 - 2, 0 mar -