laid the foundation for the banking union by establishing the single supervisory mechanism at the ecb, which is a main pillar of banking union. during the global financial crisis starting in 2008, emu was put seriously to the test. as an emergency response, a number of instruments were proposed and adopted. in this context, the debate on deepening emu gained momentum with a view to ensuring that europe is better prepared to withstand future shocks. the five presidents ’ report “ completing europe ’ s economic and monetary union ” published in june 2015 by the presidents of the european commission, the european parliament, the european central bank, the european council, and the eurogroup laid down a roadmap to deepen emu in two stages and complete it by 2025 at the latest. the proposals rest on four pillars : first, an economic union that promotes convergence, prosperity and social cohesion ; second, a financial union that integrates banking and capital markets regulation ; third, a fiscal union that guarantees sound public households ; and fourth, a political union that strengthens democratic accountability, legitimacy and institution building. in the following years, a great number of papers and proposals had been published from the eu commission to bring progress in the different fields, covered in the 5 presidents ’ report. we all know that this is hard work and that economic policy discussions may be overshadowed by other topics, as we had to see at the last eu council summit. in any case, the euro summit on june 29 agreed that the banking package will be adopted before the end of the year and the esm will provide the common backstop to the single resolution fund. if we take a medium - term view eu and emu have been able to achieve substantial progress in important fields – progress that may have been considered utopian just 10 years ago. i just want to mention the establishment of the single supervisory mechanism in the context of the european banking union and the creation and highly successful work of the european stability mechanism. in my view this can be seen as a justification for careful optimism with regard to the next steps of the evolution of european economic and monetary policy. this refers for instance to welcome the capital markets union initiative launched in 2014. its aim is to provide businesses with a greater choice of funding at lower costs, offer new opportunities for private investors and make the financial system more resilient. by attracting households and companies to invest, a capital markets union mainly enables small and medium - sized enterprises ( smes ) to access market financing in

financial technology the european commission has already launched a public consultation aiming at update and amendments of the settlement finality directive1. in addition, review of other basic legal acts related to payments as the payment services directive2 and the electronic money directive3 is expected to start by the end of 2021. i wish interesting and fruitful work to the participants in the video conference. directive 98 / 26 / ec of the european parliament and of the council of 19 may 1998 on settlement finality in payment and securities settlement systems 2 directive ( eu ) 2015 / 2366 of the european parliament and of the council of 25 november 2015 on payment services in the internal market, amending directives 2002 / 65 / ec, 2009 / 110 / ec and 2013 / 36 / eu and regulation ( eu ) no 1093 / 2010, and repealing directive 2007 / 64 / ec 3 directive 2009 / 110 / еc of the european parliament and of the council of 16 september 2009 on the taking up, pursuit and prudential supervision of the business of electronic money institutions amending directives 2005 / 60 / ec and 2006 / 48 / ec and repealing directive 2000 / 46 / ec 2 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches