vaut en particulier a la veille de l ’ elargissement de l ’ union europeenne. valery giscard d ’ estaing et helmut schmidt ont rappele, a juste titre, dans un article commun publie il y a quelques jours, que “ le succes de la monnaie unique depend, a terme, de l ’ accomplissement de nouveaux pas sur le plan politique. sans cela, les changements de gouvernement intervenant dans l ’ un ou l ’ autre des pays membres risqueraient de remettre en cause la solidite de l ’ union. (... ) on aurait pu s ’ attendre a ce que le traite d ’ amsterdam contienne des decisions prises par les pays participants, mais ceux - ci n ’ etaient pas capables de s ’ accorder sur des reformes. (... ) l ’ union monetaire est un projet federal qui doit etre accompagne et soutenu par d ’ autres mesures. elle n ’ a jamais ete faite pour rester un ilot isole dans l ’ œil d ’ un cyclone d ’ interets nationaux. ” pour toutes ces raisons, il est necessaire que la cooperation franco - allemande devienne encore plus intense, afin que le dynamisme de l ’ integration ne faiblisse pas apres l ’ entree dans l ’ union monetaire. l ’ unification europeenne est et reste un objectif porteur.

as to facilitate better interfaces between the financial management systems of corporates ( i. e. enterprise resource planning systems ) and the systems operated by banks. new standards will allow account - related information to be handled more efficiently. corporates will also receive additional information on their bank statements thanks to sepa. “ sepa : potential benefits at stake – researching the impact of sepa on the payments market and its stakeholders ”, capgemini consulting. let me now turn to those issues that need to be addressed by corporates in order to ensure that sepa is implemented successfully. • first, corporates will have to migrate their databases, which still contain national account numbers, in order to incorporate the international bank account numbers. most euro area countries have agreed on a migration procedure aimed at assisting the corporates to do this. 3 • second, corporates will have to contact the banks in order to be able to better evaluate the benefits that sepa will bring to their organisation. banks will provide information as to how products and payment cycles may be improved, but you could also contact your provider directly with regard to better products. • third, corporates could plan ahead. several initiatives are under way, which are focusing on corporate - to - bank connectivity and a standardised way of transmitting remittance information with the payment. so far, not many corporates have actively started preparing themselves for sepa, as for them, the precise impact of sepa is not entirely clear. this is probably related to the initial reluctance of banks and software providers to communicate on sepa, as some of their products are still in the pilot phase. by the end of 2010, we expect the vast majority of payments to be executed as sepa payments. however, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is a need to specify an end date on which the current payment instruments will be phased out. 4 so far, a conversion procedure for migrating from the traditional national account number ( bban ) to the international account number ( iban ) has been agreed in 13 euro area countries ( be, de, es, fr, gr, it, cy, lu, mt, nl, at, si, fi ). the decision process has not yet been finalised in two euro area countries ( ie, pt ). so far, a schedule for the phasing - out of national payment instruments has been agreed in six euro area countries ( be, fr, cy, nl, si and fi ). discussions have already