alexandre lamfalussy and his principle - based, but pragmatic approach to economic and political affairs. in 2003, lamfalussy gave a speech in budapest on the unfortunately also now extremely relevant topic “ correcting europe ’ s dismal growth performance should be the eu ’ s prime policy objective ”. in this speech, he warned against relying on the u. s. a. as “ consumer of last resort ” and made a number of proposals for “ domestically propelled growth in europe ”. and he ended his speech with some very characteristic remarks. the proposals, and now i quote : “ will bring sizable benefits to most of us, but not without throwing up new challenges. you may say that this remark is just the usual manifestation of a central banker ’ s innate caution. well, it may be. but that does not mean that i am necessarily wrong ”. i see this as a way of thinking with which every central banker can – and should – agree. references : lamfalussy, a. 1989. macro - coordination of fiscal policies in an economic and monetary union in europe, collection of papers. committee for the study of economic and monetary union. luxembourg, 1989. january. 91 – 126. lamfalussy, a. 2003. introductory remarks : correcting europe ’ s dismal growth performance should be the eu ’ s prime policy objective. world science forum. budapest. landvai, p. 1999. die ungarn. 4. auflage c. bertelsmann ( also in english edition ). maes, i. 2009. the young lamfalussy : an empirical and policy - oriented growth theorist. working paper research no. 163. national bank of belgium. maes, i. 2011. the evolution of alexander lamfalussy ’ s thought on the international and european monetary system. working paper research no. 217, national bank of belgium. marsh, d. 2009. the euro – the battle for the new global currency. yale u. p. nowotny, e. 2010. the euro ’ s contribution to economic stability in cesee. in : e. nowotny, p. mooslechner, d. ritzberger - grunwald ( eds. ). the euro and economic stability. edward elgar. piris, j. - c. 2012. the future of europe – towards a two speed eu? cambridge u. p bis central bankers ’ speeches

the single supervisory mechanism, the ssm, we have made a major effort to help this banking union to get on its way. the ssm is designed to be as open and as appealing to non - euro area eu member states as possible, and we do hope that as many non - euro area countries as possible will participate. given the high degree of financial integration and interdependence in europe, it is certainly in our common interest that the ssm cover as broad a set of countries as possible. to reap the full benefits of the single financial market in europe, it is important to avoid measures that would have unintended side effects, e. g. in terms of market fragmentation. it is my conviction that ringfencing will not help us move forward. regulatory and supervisory measures with regard to capital and liquidity in individual countries should be taken in a european spirit, for the better of europe as a whole. the reversal in european financial integration, which we have seen over the past few years, needs to be stopped and in fact reversed again, so that cross - border finance in the eu can play out its full role in the common market. those banks in europe which operate in more than one country should no longer be considered austrian, german or italian banks and so forth. they are european banks. not only will they be supervised by the ecb as soon as the ssm takes effect ( if they are bis central bankers ’ speeches headquartered in member states that participate in the ssm ), they are also european in the way they operate. for instance, the top management at their subsidiaries across europe is no longer mainly composed of members that come from what we still call the “ home ” countries. in fact, the subsidiaries show a continuous trend toward multinational set - ups. to be more specific : less than one - third of the top management of austrian banks ’ subsidiaries in cesee are from austria. that said, the vast majority of board members comes from either the respective host countries or other third countries. the same is essentially true for the subsidiaries of other european parent banks. in my view, this diversity is a big asset as it brings a greater variety of views and thus improves the decision - making process. all of this points toward a scenario in which the european perspective will be attributed an ever greater weight. strengthening the european perspective may be a lengthy and, at times, an arduous process, but it is certainly the way to go – and will make