the united states 8 % ; japan 9 % ; france 10 % ; united kingdom and italy 14 % ; spain 15 % on average. 3. 3 central banks ’ more prominent role the final issue i would like to briefly touch upon is what many see as the increasing powers of central banks, which also has a bearing on their independence. according to harold james, “ the pendulum is (... ) swinging back ” towards more politically controlled central banks. “ the new post - crisis vision of the central bank, ” he continues, “ is often a very different sort of institution from the 1990s vision of a mechanism for guaranteeing price stability. ” 10 as a result of the most recent crisis central banks have assumed a much broader role and been assigned new functions. the far reaching implications of central bank decisions have prompted a debate about the limits of their mandates and the legitimacy of their actions. with respect to the euro area, some have even dubbed the ecb the only game in town. these days the ecb ’ s role in greece ’ s fate has spurred an intense debate. greece is certainly the focal and dominating topic at the moment. and no one can seriously say right now if these days will mark a turning point in european monetary history, challenging the irreversibility of euro membership or heralding the move towards a transfer union. greece is a topic that shows us in no uncertain terms that, despite the deeper integration that the crisis brought about in europe, the euro - area member states are ultimately still responsible for their own affairs. they can decide for themselves not to service their debts, to collect taxes inadequately, and – this is something i particularly fear in the case of greece – to lead their country ’ s economy into deep trouble. the greek government has not only walked out on the previous agreements, but has been widely criticised as an unreliable negotiating partner. a little over a week ago, the assistance programme finally came to an end, and the greek government has stopped honouring its payment obligations towards public creditors such as the imf. in addition, a clear majority of the greek general public have spoken out in a referendum against contributing any further to the solvency of their country through additional consolidation measures and reforms. what is the role of central banks in this situation? central banks – although they have the means – have no mandate, in my view, to safeguard the solvency of banks and governments. that kind of implicit redistribution is a matter for governments or parliaments, if at

, job availability and better living conditions migrated so far to the eu - 15. this has led to severe tensions in many industries pushing wages and unit labour costs up. high corporate profits have provided a cushion yet, but, if this situation continues, many companies will be forced to raise prices to remain profitable. 4. rising unit labour costs. growing tension on the labour market is present in all cee countries, but baltic and balkan states seem to be the most threatened by rising labour costs. annual average dynamics of unit labour costs in the second quarter of 2007 in cee accounted to 8 per cent and in the group of baltic and balkan states the figure was over two times higher. this shows that sooner or later ( rather sooner ) enterprises will stop cutting their profit margins and will be forced to pass growing operational costs on consumers. 5. challenges to keep fast productivity growth. we live in a global knowledge economy, which is driven by innovation – technological, business - process or customer related. the crucial factor to succeed in the global knowledge economy is the country ’ s ability to develop intellectual capital. only those who understand the importance of innovations for growth will thrive and prosper in the coming decades. unfortunately, cee region lags badly behind the leaders in terms of its current and future ability to generate innovation. one of indicators measuring current ability to innovate is the number of researchers. in the mid - 1990s cee - 4 ( the czech republic, hungary, poland and slovakia ) and asian nies had similar number of researchers per million people, while two years ago nies had almost twice as many persons employed in r & d per million people in comparison with cee - 4. future knowledge potential of particular country or region can be measured by tertiary enrolment ratio. tertiary enrolment ratio in the cee - 4 countries improved to 50 percent in 2004, but still remains well below 62 percent in the eu - 15 and 82 percent in the united states.. because of a relatively small population and a number of structural deficiencies it is very unlikely, that increase in the number of students in cee - 4 that have occurred in recent decade will translate into higher innovation potential in the coming years, unless a dramatic change in policies in cee - 4 is made. this is also confirmed by a dramatically low number of patents registered in the cee countries and extremely low number of scientific publications. as the ability to generate great ideas in the cee region is limited, it seems that