fundamental principles of the free movement of goods, services, capital and people if they are also able to transfer money as rapidly, reliably and cheaply from one part of the european union to another, as is now the case within each member state. despite the introduction of the euro, however, there is still a clear gap between the service levels of domestic and cross - border retail payment systems in terms of quality, efficiency and pricing. the substantial disparities between domestic and cross - border services ought now to be reduced, and should ultimately disappear. in order to encourage the development of cross - border payment systems enabling the public to benefit more fully from the single currency, the eurosystem has drawn up a set of objectives for cross - border retail payments in the euro area. these will be detailed in a separate press release which will be issued in the coming days. the eurosystem calls on the banking and payment service industry to fulfil these objectives by 1 january 2002 at the latest. finally, i would like to inform you that we also discussed issues related to fraud prevention. i would like to emphasise that the ecb shares the concerns of the european parliament, the eu council and the commission about the protection of the communities ’ financial interests against fraud and other detrimental activities. consequently, for the sake of transparency, efficiency and accountability, the governing council decided to establish an external supervisory committee to enforce an anti - fraud scheme at the ecb. this committee will establish a cooperative relationship with the european anti - fraud office ( olaf ).

in making monetary policy decisions in the coming period as well. chart 5 oil and copper price movements ( average monthly prices, in usd ) chart 6 prices of primary agricultural commodities and their futures 10, 000 9, 000 8, 000 ( usd / t ) 7, 000 6, 000 5, 000 4, 000 3, 000 2, 000 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 price of brent oil per barrel ( lhs ) brent oil futures ( lhs ) price of copper per ton ( rhs ) source : bloomberg. copper futures ( rhs ) 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 1 5 9 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 corn wheat source : cbot - chicago boаrd of trade. during the first quarter, uncertainty and volatility in the international financial market also increased. the character of monetary policies of leading central banks diverged further amid the still present uncertainty in terms of the pace of their normalisation in the coming period and, in turn, movements in the dollar / euro relationship, as well as capital flows towards emerging economies. despite this, global financial conditions are still favourable. strengthening domestic fundamentals – a response to external challenges it is a fact that there have been and there still will be external challenges going forward. we cannot impact them, but only mitigate their effects. therefore structural improvements of our economy and the narrowed internal and external imbalances have been of particular importance as they boosted our resilience to negative effects of global factors. in conditions of rising corporate profitability, positive tendencies in the labour market and higher efficiency of tax collection, favourable fiscal movements continued in 2018 as well, with a surplus of around 0. 4 % of gdp in the first quarter. chart 7. fiscal trends chart 8 current account deficit and net fdi inflow ( in % of gdp ) - 5. 5 - 6. 8 - 2. 7 - 6. 6 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 source : ministry of finance. consolidated result ( rhs ) interest payments ( rsh ) revenues ( lhs ) expenditures ( lhs ) 2019 * - 4. 8 - 3. 2 - 3. 7 - 4. 6 - 2. 9 - 3. 1 2018 *