permit the european union to face up with the new globalised world. or, we do not convincingly succeed into this direction, and then a new jump in the institutional framework of europe toward a political federation will appear necessary. it is often said that europe has demonstrated the capacity to make progress when it has to draw lessons from its own difficulties. i find this notion in jean monnet ’ s remarks, immediately after the conference of the “ six ” on 23 july 1952, on the e. c. s. c., almost 60 years ago. at the end of chapter 14 of his memoires, he writes : “ je dis a francois fontaine : nous avons quelques heures pour nous reposer, et quelques mois pour reussir. ensuite … ensuite – poursuivit fontaine en souriant, nos rencontrerons de grandes difficultes dont nous nous servirons pour avancer a nouveau. – c ’ est bien cela, n ’ est - ce pas? – c ’ est cela meme. vous avez tout compris sur l ’ europe. ” “ i told francois fontaine : we have a few hours to rest, and a few months to succeed. then … then said a smiling fontaine, we will meet great difficulties which we will use to advance further. is it the right way to look at it? it is exactly the right way. you have understood everything about europe! ” tommaso was often mentioning this remark of jean monnet when we were discussing together the future of europe. more than ever, europe, coping with the present challenges, needs to demonstrate its sense of direction. this is no time for fatigue. this is no time for complacency. thank you for your attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches

constraints for smes have been higher. 3 ] matching credit supply and demand we are already seeing signs in the euro area that a rebalancing towards capital market financing is taking place : as bank credit to corporates has fallen, it has been approximately matched by issuance of corporate bonds. it would nonetheless be naive to expect this transition towards a new financing mix to occur seamlessly. while on aggregate, euro area credit supply might be sufficient to meet credit demand, i see two factors that might lead to an imperfect match between supply and demand for certain firms. they are the location of those firms and their size. see for example arcand, jean - louis, enrico berkes, and ugo panizza ( 2012 ). “ too much finance? ” imf working paper no. 12 / 161, or manganelli, simone, and alex popov ( 2013 ). “ financial dependence, global growth opportunities, and growth revisited. ” economics letters, 120 ( 1 ), 123 – 125. oecd ( 2014 ). “ the role of the financial sector for economic growth in oecd and g20 countries, ” internal paper prepared for the economic policy committee. ryan, r., o ’ toole, c. and mccann, f. ( 2014 ), “ does bank market power affect sme financing constraints ”, journal of banking and finance, january. bis central bankers ’ speeches location in terms of location, the cost of and access to finance in the euro area remains strongly based on national conditions. for example, the average cost of borrowing for non - financial firms in portugal is more than 5 % per year, whereas the equivalent for french firms is around 2 % per year. one would imagine in this situation that a portuguese firm would seek out a french bank, but the euro area banking market does not facilitate such arbitrage. direct cross - border loans to firms account for just 7. 5 % of total loans to firms. and local affiliates of foreign banks represent on average only around 20 % of national markets, and much less in larger countries. thus, firms depend heavily on the health of their domestic banks. moreover, while corporate bond issuance has partially substituted for bank lending, it is strongly concentrated in non - distressed countries where there has been no decrease in the net flow of bank loans. the net issuance of debt securities, quoted shares and bank loans in non - distressed countries was plus €66 billion in 2013, whereas it