europe. even after the end of the plan, us experts continued their missions to europe as industrial consultants, and european engineers continued to visit the united states for training. a good number of italian public administrators took advantage, including the bank of italy ’ s salvatore guidotti, who learned “ modern ” national accounts methods in washington. a number of management schools on the harvard pattern were founded in italy. two of the leading figures in the italian industrial renaissance, vittorio valletta and adriano olivetti, were influenced by this climate. us department of state, office of public affairs, current development report on european recovery, no. 3, 1948. today the european economic community is an established fact, the soviet adversary has dissolved, asia has stridden purposefully onto the world stage and other regions too are clamouring for a larger role. the economic supremacy of the united states remains, but now it must come to grips with a series of other economic power centres. how, and how profoundly, have these developments affected the interdependence between the economies on the two sides of the atlantic? let us examine the facts. economic interdependence must be assessed in three respects : the real economy ( trade and direct investment ) ; the financial economy ; and economic policy ( reciprocal influence and cooperation ). 2. trade and foreign direct investment 2. 1 on trade. first, a premise : both the us and europe were and are still relatively “ closed ” economies. for the united states, foreign trade in goods represents scarcely a fourth of gdp today. the openness of today ’ s 27 - member european union is of about the same order of magnitude. however, this similarity conceals significant differences in trend. the united states built its internal market much earlier than europe, in the nineteenth century ; and even in the 1950s and 1960s american foreign trade was much more modest than now, accounting for just one tenth of gdp. the dynamics was very different. the us were a closed economy with a predominant internal market until recently. the single countries of europe were much more open versus the us than vice versa before european integration. as this took off the ground, the internal market replaced external trade. america ’ s “ discovery ” of the importance of the world around it is historically recent. it has been fostered by globalization and spurred by the deficit of domestic saving. but the secular dominance of the us domestic market makes american firms and policymakers alike primarily inward - looking. europe does still consist of

by the basel rules to steer the countercyclical capital buffer ) is amply negative in most countries. fully aware that relaunching nominal economic growth in the eurozone is the paramount objective, the ecb has embarked on a program of quantitative easing. in this environment, macroprudential policy needs to lean decisively against the wind and act to rekindle credit and economic growth. but in practice it is not doing so. indeed, most recent macroprudential actions at national level have further tightened capital requirements, in response to national problems. coupled with the ongoing micro - level tightening, these measures could ultimately aggravate the risks of persistently low nominal growth. there are certainly good reasons, on which i shall not elaborate here, for leaving area - wide macroprudential instruments on hold. at the same time, since under the regulation the ssm has both micro - and macroprudential responsibilities, i believe that reflection on this issue is warranted. the complexity of the european system of financial supervision is extraordinary. this complexity follows from two main factors. first, there are a large number of actors on the stage – at both national and supranational levels, with both micro - and macro - prudential objectives – and in interaction with one another. legislators, perfectly well aware that the new set of rules that originated the system may need some fine tuning, incorporated the deadlines of a revision process in the rules themselves. time and experience will tell just how much room there is for simplification. second, eu member countries are still characterized by different accounting and legal regimes. convergence is necessary for company, insolvency and taxation law in particular, but a gradual approach will be inevitable. meanwhile, an effort by all stakeholders will be necessary to get the system to work effectively and to ensure a level playing field. heterogeneity is found in the area of supervision as well, but here i am confident that the ssm will bring relatively swift convergence in supervisory practices. my own very preliminary assessment of the functioning of the ssm is positive. the progress achieved in such a short time has been amazing. nonetheless, we are still at the very first stages, and adjustments may well be necessary. we need to avoid the risks of inefficiency that stem from the complexity of the machinery. a huge number of issues – and of related decisions – are brought to the attention of the supervisory board ; this threatens to def