. in the following weeks, coming to such an agreement was very difficult and necessitated tremendous efforts from all those involved. but i am grateful that in the end, an agreement was reached. if it is completely implemented, the new programme will put greece in a position to grow again and to reap the full benefits of participating in our common currency. the ecb contributed, in line with the provisions laid out in the legal framework, to the negotiation of the programme. in addition, the ecb closely monitored the provision of emergency liquidity assistance by the bank of greece according to our rules, taking into account the prospect of a successful completion of the negotiations at any point in time. completing emu : following up on the five presidents ’ report the negotiations over the summer revealed again the fact that our institutional framework is still not commensurate with the requirements of sharing one currency. in the five presidents ’ report that we published shortly after the last hearing, the five authors shared one common conviction, namely that to make monetary union stable and prosperous, a more complete union is necessary. but we did not only outline this common conviction ; we also presented a concrete roadmap showing how to attain this objective. this roadmap should now guide our discussions in the months to come. from our perspective, two elements are of particular importance. first, despite the best efforts of all actors involved, the crisis has shown that monetary union requires a political centre ; a centre that can take the relevant fiscal, economic and financial decisions for the euro area as a whole in a swift and transparent manner with full democratic legitimacy and a clear set of responsibilities given to it by the legislators. it is in this spirit that i have called repeatedly for a move from rules - based coordination to sharing of sovereignty within common institutions. the report proposes a euro area treasury as one example. such ideas now need to be spelled out. but we should also go further with regard to our policies. the report makes clear that emu will also need to strengthen its tools to manage and prevent the build - up of fiscal, financial and other macroeconomic risks. in the last few years, notably with the reforms strengthening the economic governance framework and setting up the esm, ssm and srm, we have bis central bankers ’ speeches made important first steps in improving our crisis prevention and crisis management toolkit. but we are not there yet. most imminently, we should move towards completing banking union through a common backstop for the single resolution

a commitment from policymakers either to ensuring the swift achievement of this aim or to going beyond the aims envisaged in these programmes once economic growth has picked up. let me turn now to the contribution that stability - oriented structural reforms, particularly of euro area labour markets, can play in reducing unemployment and in supporting the stability of the euro. the high level of european unemployment is quite rightly a source of deep concern and should be addressed at a fundamental level. clearly, the approaches that are most likely to have a lasting effect are those that address the root causes of the problem, not just the symptoms. the root causes of high unemployment in the european union are structural rigidities in the labour market as well as tax and public transfer policies. this view is supported by a wide body of academic literature and was also a key finding of the oecd jobs study. it is obvious that structural problems require structural solutions. implementing an inflationary monetary policy would not result in lasting reductions in unemployment, but would actually serve to exacerbate the problem over the medium term. i recognise that structural reforms are not always easy to implement. the benefits are often enjoyed in the medium term, while short - term costs for some groups may mean that reforms are vigorously opposed by interest groups. although there is a common objective of reducing unemployment, there is no common programme of reforms that will work in all countries. while it is possible to learn from the experience of others, each member state will wish to develop workable policies that reflect its own particular circumstances. although the path of structural reform is not always an easy one, it is the only way in which we can achieve the lasting reductions in unemployment that are so urgently needed. only structural reforms that aim to create stable labour markets in which there is flexible interaction between supply and demand will ensure that the benefits of emu in terms of economic growth are achieved to the maximum extent possible. conclusions to conclude, economic and monetary union provides a great opportunity to create and maintain a large zone of price stability and economic prosperity in europe. however, while price stability is a necessary condition for fully grasping the opportunities of emu, it is not, in itself, sufficient. stability - oriented polices regarding the development of national fiscal positions and the functioning of labour markets are also of crucial importance. as i have explained, the benefits of emu will not come in a quasi - automatic way. while monetary policy will make its contribution by following policies that maintain price stability, other economic policies