way ahead so where do we go from here? in a revision phase to follow, the governing council of the ecb will invite one or more prizewinners to review their design proposals. a final design will be agreed in cooperation with the city of frankfurt. after this revision phase, the governing council of the ecb will award the contract for planning its new premises to one of the three prizewinning architects. once this decision has been made, the ecb will take the next steps, again in cooperation with the city of frankfurt. this will involve developing an urban development plan to allow for the implementation of the design concept. in parallel, the detailed planning of the project will get under way. i am sure you will appreciate that it is very difficult, at this early stage, to predict the exact timing of the next steps. the current users of the großmarkthalle site - the wholesalers - are scheduled to move to a new location in kalbach this summer. thereafter, the city of frankfurt will “ clean up ” the site, which means, for instance, demolishing adjacent technical structures that do not form part of the historic großmarkthalle building. we expect that the city will be able to hand over the site to the ecb, as agreed, in january 2005. after completing the planning phase and obtaining the relevant permits from the authorities, we hope to start construction during 2006 and look forward to moving into our new home around 2008 / 2009. ladies and gentlemen, let me conclude by emphasising that the governing council of the ecb is very satisfied that the results of the international architectural competition have fulfilled its expectations. our new home will be functional, aesthetically appealing and, at the same time, reflect the core values of our institution. i am confident that the new ecb premises will give us all - the ecb, the city of frankfurt, and the architectural profession - a reason to be proud. thank you for your attention. it now gives me great pleasure to hand over the prizes to the three prizewinners : • 1st prize : coop himmelb ( l ) au, represented by prof. wolf prix. • 2nd prize : asp schweger assoziierte, represented by prof. peter schweger. • 3rd prize : 54f architekten in association with t. r. hamzah & yeang, represented by prof. johann eisele. i am now

in the euro area under the macroeconomic imbalances procedure. this new model is under development and still needs to be perfected – in particular in the financial sector, more work still needs to be done. that said, problems of regulatory arbitrage created by national level banking supervision are being addressed through an increasing harmonisation of supervisory standards and the establishment of a european system of financial supervisors with new european supervisory authorities. europe is also exceeding international benchmarks in transposing the new basel iii rules. we may be seeing the beginning of a euro area framework for banking sector recapitalisation and resolution with the decision to allow the esm to recapitalise banks in non - programme countries. indeed, a modest first step that will be followed by others in the future. conclusion to conclude, the euro area has learned that the original design of emu was incomplete, and is now working hard to complete it. for various reasons, the euro area is not in a position to adopt in the near term the institutions of a political federation. this means that it has to take a different road to increase overall stability and – in true european tradition – a sui generis approach is being developed that focuses on preventing imbalances and improving collective management of crisis. it is clear that this approach implies a loss of sovereignty. the crisis has proved that the euro area is a political entity which is not self - adjusting ; it needs to be actively governed, and this bis central bankers ’ speeches cannot happen without member states sharing more powers with each other. in other words, there has been a belated recognition that monetary union entails political union. this shift has profound implications for the involvement of all levels of governments in the european project : eu institutions, national governments, national parliaments, and even local governments are all required to participate in the common governance of the euro area. managing this process represents the next great challenge of european integration. bis central bankers ’ speeches