as possible. 3 / 5 bis - central bankers'speeches the significant discrepancies that persist among the various ssm jurisdictions, in the areas of commercial law, corporate law, labour law and administrative law should not be an ideological barrier to such an exercise. the regulation of the qualitative prudential standards to be applied vis - a - vis credit institutions could disregard the corporate models provided under each single jurisdiction, and focus instead on a functional approach. one area, perhaps a minor but not a negligible one, that apparently continues to elude a fully harmonised approach is that of administrative sanctions, as national legislators still retain wide margins of discretion with reference to those who should be sanctioned and, above all, under what conditions. the crd6 proposal, still under negotiation, seeks to define in a more precise and exhaustive manner the list of infringements that member states should be obliged to consider when applying sanctions. however, it is still a minimal list, naturally subject to gold plating. likewise, the precise combination of sanctions against supervised entities on the one hand, and sanctions against their managers, on the other hand, would also seem to remain a matter of domestic law. in the last few years, the european court of human rights as well as the court of justice have had a fruitful dialogue with the national judges and drawn up a dense case law on the fundamental procedural principles to be applied to administrative sanctions ('right to be silent ','ne bis in idem ', and so on ). we believe that these rulings could form the basis for a fully uniform eu law on sanctions vis - a - vis credit institutions and their management. again with a view to a level playing field in the sensitive area of enforcement, there should also be some thought on the possibility of harmonising – here at a minimum level, considering the conditions imposed by article 83 ( 2 ) tfeu – a very delicate area that is still closely governed by national laws : namely that of the criminal law rules intended to safeguard the exercise of banking supervisory tasks and the general interests underpinning them, within the constitutional framework of the member states. a mature system such as the ssm should be backed and secured by a hard set of criminal law rules, with their basic features enshrined at eu level. indeed, any obstruction to the supervisory functions exercised by the ecb or by one of the 20 ncas ought to be subject to homogeneous criminal sanctioning treatments

ignazio visco : divergence in monetary policies across the atlantic? remarks by mr ignazio visco, deputy director general of the bank of italy, at the policy panel of the ceders – 3rd meeting on open macroeconomics and development “ the euro area, the euro and the world business cycle ”, aix - en - provence, 3 - 4 july 2008. i am grateful to sergio nicoletti altimari for comments and suggestions while remaining solely responsible for the views here expressed. * * * in my remarks, i will first start with the basic question raised to the panel : are there differences in the fed's and ecb's behaviour? i will then tackle two issues that have probably become more pressing in light of the current financial turmoil : i ) are there obvious limitations in the monetary frameworks and how should they be addressed?, and ii ) do we need some form of monetary policy coordination? 1. fed – ecb divergences a popular belief is that the dual mandate of the fed, as opposed to the overriding price stability objective of the ecb, is the major source of policy differences across the atlantic. in this respect, if we take a medium - to long - term view, and we agree that over those horizons money cannot affect potential output ( the phillips curve is vertical ), then the different mandate should not be relevant. indeed : • the track record of the fed in the past 20 years, as well as the positions expressed repeatedly by its executives, speak by themselves of the centrality the fed attributes to the price stability objective ( see figure ). • an important difference is of course that, contrary to the ecb, the fed has not announced a quantitative definition of its goal : this may give the ecb some ( slight ) advantage in anchoring expectations, as some recent studies appear to suggest, 1 and thus perhaps a more favourable shorter - run trade off. it is at the shorter horizons, in the strategic conduct of monetary policy by the two central banks, that we may more likely find some differences : • a starting point in this respect is the observation that since the start of the euro in 1999 the volatility of policy interest rates in the us has been two times larger than in the euro area ( see figure ). 2 • understanding why this is the case is not easy, as the difference may reflect differences in the conduct of policy, in the structures of the economy, in the size and nature of