cooperation exemplifies what will be important in the ssm. like us supervisors, ese, too, has recently seen eventful times. last year, we saw a considerable increase in the number of seminar participants – a noteworthy success and confirmation of the excellent work by those responsible for ese. these parties include the programme council, composed of proven supervisory experts and responsible for keeping the content of the training measures up to date at all times. the steering committee and the ese secretariat naturally also play a pivotal role. at this juncture, i would like to express my sincere thanks to the representatives of ese for all that you have done to make ese one of the leading training initiatives for supervisors in europe. 4. the future let us now take a further step – forward – and venture a look into the future. now that the european parliament has approved the draft legislation, the ssm can soon be officially launched. we have a year full of hard work ahead of us. thankfully, the preparations are in progress – through the high level group of ecb and national authorities ’ representatives and the many affiliated working groups, the basic framework of the ssm has already been laid out. over the coming months, we will define the further details of the cooperation between the ecb and national supervisors and codify them in a framework regulation. we will continue our work on the organisational and operational structure of the new supervisory regime and institute an efficient reporting process. however, in my opinion, it is the balancesheet assessment which represents the greatest challenge in the months ahead of us. the ecb needs a clear picture of the actual risk faced by the banks it will be supervising. moreover, light needs to be shed on which balance - sheet burdens arose under the watch of national supervisors. we therefore need a thorough and rigorous review of balance - sheets. this will be the first test of the ssm and of cooperation between the authorities involved. though we don ’ t have much time at all to accomplish this extremely complex task, i believe that, if we act in unison, we will succeed. one year from now, the preparations will be completed and the ssm will take the helm. in order for the ssm to exploit its advantages, one thing will be paramount : a consistent supervisory approach incorporating the strengths of individual national approaches and experiences. this common supervisory approach must build on established principles such as risk - orientation, proportionality as well as an integrated micro and macroprude

sabine lautenschlager : supervisors without borders speech by ms sabine lautenschlager deputy president of the deutsche bundesbank, at the evening reception of the ese ( the european supervisor education initiative ) conference 2013 “ the future of european financial supervision ”, frankfurt am main, 26 september 2013. * 1. * * introduction good evening to you all, ladies and gentlemen, and a warm welcome to the regional office in hesse. for many of you, this day of the conference has been quite intensive. you have listened to lectures in the rooms of the goethe university, covering a wide range of topics including european supervisory systems, market and banking structures as well as systemic risks and macroprudential supervision ; you may have had intense discussions following these lectures. and now you are back in the world of the famous author johann wolfgang goethe. “ what am i talking about? ”, you are probably wondering. the unifying theme of the art in this building is “ frankfurt, goethe, money ”. and i will begin at the core of my remarks this evening with a quote which from my point of view fits perfectly to our situation as banking supervisors. it is a quote from goethe ’ s faust : “ in the beginning was the deed ”. under this motto, i would like to take three steps together with you. 2. the preceding five years let us first go back a step : to the preceding five years, which were marked by the collapse of lehman brothers and the ensuing crisis. a crisis which shaked the very foundations of the financial system and the european monetary union. the financial system ’ s weaknesses were abruptly laid bare. we observed, when push came to shove, how quickly banks ’ inadequately small buffers were depleted, with many institutions requiring life support in the form of government assistance. it also became instantly clear that banks ’ internal control systems were no match for the complexity and interconnected nature of the risks involved. however, the crisis did not remain confined to the financial system. the focus soon turned to government budgets, which in some cases were already in critical condition, and which then threatened to collapse under the weight of the rescue packages. the distress which many countries were then undergoing made the banking sector ’ s problems even worse. however, this was also a time of reforms and change. at the initiative and under the leadership of the g20, policymakers, regulators and supervisors undertook to develop a programme of comprehensive financial sector reforms, which are now gradually being implemented