assumes limited - term liability for receivables and a guarantee for debt instruments issued by the clearingbank. measures under this law may not exceed eur 75 billion and they are temporary – the law expires on december 31, 2009. • under the financial market stability act, the minister of finance may take measures to recapitalize credit institutions and insurance undertakings by way of assumption of liabilities, guarantees for loans and provision of own capital, acquisition of company shares or convertible bonds, takeover of company assets, and – as last resort – takeover of property rights ( i. e. nationalization ). fees and interest for the instruments must be set at market rates. measures under this law may not exceed eur 15 billion. the law also provides for ( re ) privatization after the purpose has been achieved. • another measure taken by the austrian authorities concerns the safeguarding of bank deposits : • for bank deposits of retail customers, a 100 % state guarantee was put in place retroactively from october 1, 2008, limited until the end of 2009. • as of january 1, 2010, protection for retail customers will be raised to eur 100. 000 ( previously eur 20. 000 per account holder / per bank ). • the deposit protection for small and medium - sized enterprises will be raised to eur 50. 000. • a maximum of eur 10 billion is allotted to this measure. cesee banking market was 15. 2 % in mid - 2008 ( if russia is excluded : 21. 8 % ). at end - 2008 twelve austrian banks operated 73 fully consolidated subsidiaries in cesee. • in addition, the austrian financial market authority ( fma ) passed a decree prohibiting the short - selling of the stocks of insurance companies and banks listed on the austrian stock exchange, for a period of 3 months until the end of january 2009 ( which can be prolonged if deemed necessary ). • all these measures, adopted in a swift and comprehensive way, will contribute to reestablishing confidence in the austrian financial market and securing financial stability. development of the european supervisory framework • the current financial crisis has revealed certain weaknesses in the eu ’ s supervisory framework, which is still fragmented nationally despite increasing financial integration and cross - border activities of financial institutions. until now the supervisory development in the eu has followed an evolutionary approach, and the level 3 committees of the lamfalussy framework – cebs, cesr and ceiops 2 – have achieved considerable convergence regarding supervisory

jens weidmann : the euro area in 2016 – crucial to set right course for enhancing growth and stability speech by dr jens weidmann, president of the deutsche bundesbank and chairman of the board of directors of the bank for international settlements, at the international club la redoute e. v., bonn, 28 january 2016. * 1. * * introductory remarks grafin lambsdorff, ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your kind welcome and for inviting me to your club. i was pleased to accept your invitation. i am probably partial to requests to speak in bonn – and i mean that positively – due to my old ties to the university of bonn. after all, i studied here for a number of years and obtained a degree in economics and a phd here, thus acquiring a large chunk of my economic “ toolkit ” in this city. however, a more important reason for accepting your invitation was the fact that you regularly address current european policy topics. i am sure that we will therefore have a lively debate at the end of my speech. ladies and gentleman, as you know, 2016 is a leap year. there have been leap years since the time of julius caesar. they take account of the earth taking a little more than 365 days to orbit the sun. according to calculations by the greek astronomer hipparchus – which would have been known in caesar ’ s time – it took 5 hours, 55 minutes and 12 seconds longer, though he was a few minutes off according to modern - day calculations. there ended up being one leap year too many every 128 years ; as a result, by the mid - 16th century spring had been brought forward 10 days. this needed to be corrected, and pope gregory xiii did this with his gregorian calendar, which is still used today. the introduction of the gregorian calendar set the course for a calendar that keeps track with the seasons. when we talk today about setting the right course for a more stable and growthpromoting regulatory framework for monetary union, we get the impression that this requires a more complex process than the introduction of the gregorian calendar. but we merely need to take a leaf out of pope gregory xiii ’ s book of long - term thinking. we don ’ t need to look forward centuries in one fell swoop. it would already be a big step forward if we were to address the challenges looming in the coming years and decades. however, we have already been discussing the right course to set in europe for seven years