of open markets. it was also a political project that, relying on the success of the single market, would lead to the greater integration of its member states. on both counts, the vision of our forefathers has scored relatively well. imagine where the single market would be today, after the global financial crisis and rising protectionism, had all countries in europe been free to adjust their exchange rates. instead, our economies integrated, converged and coped with the most severe challenge since the great depression. that leads me to four observations. first, the integration of our economies and with it the convergence of our member states has also greatly increased. misalignments of real effective exchange rates between euro area countries are about a half those between advanced economies with flexible exchange - rates or countries linked by pegged exchange rates and they have fallen by around 20 % in the second decade of emu relative to the first. 20 second, the dispersion of growth rates across euro area countries, having fallen considerably since 1999, is since 2014 comparable to the dispersion across us states. third, this has been driven in large part by the deepening of european value chains, with emu countries now significantly more integrated with each other than the united states or china are with the rest of the world. 21 most emu countries export more with each other than with the us, china or russia. fourth, employment in the euro area has reached record highs and in all euro area countries but one stands above its 1999 level. but the remaining institutional weaknesses of our monetary union cannot be ignored at the cost of seriously damaging what has been achieved. logic would suggest that the more integrated our economies become, the faster should be the completion of banking union and capital markets union, and the faster the transition from a rules - based system for fiscal policies to an institution - based fiscal capacity. the journey towards greater integration that our citizens and firms started twenty years ago has been long, far from finished, and with broad but uneven success. but overall, it has strengthened the conviction of our peoples that it is only through more europe that the implications of this integration can be managed. for some, that trust may lie in a genuine faith in our common destiny, for others it comes from the appreciation of the greater prosperity so far achieved, for yet others that trust may be forced by the increased and unavoidable closeness of our countries. be that as it may, that trust it is now the bedrock upon which our leaders

optimal arrangement for the organisation of supervision at the national level. all organisational models – sectoral supervision, supervision by objectives, supervision in a single authority – can in principle work well or fail depending on circumstances. however, regardless of the model, it is important that there exists a very close and smooth interplay between the central banking and the supervisory function. an analysis of the institutional supervisory setting in place in eu member states shows that the majority of eu central banks have extensive supervisory responsibilities and confirms a tendency towards strengthening the role of central banks in supervisory activities. for instance, in germany and austria the key role of the central bank in conducting on - going prudential supervision of banks and on - site bank inspections, whose results are reported to the separate supervisory authority, has been recently strengthened. as the experience of the financial market correction is very likely to challenge some views that previously seemed to be fairly consensual, we can wonder whether it brings new elements also as regards this issue. in general, the experience of the eurosystem central banks during the market turmoil shows the importance for the central banks of the availability of full supervisory information for the discharge of their tasks. more specifically, all central banks felt necessary to deepen the dialogue between the central banking and the supervisory function for a better understanding of the market turmoil. [ conversely, in some member states the domestic central banking function provided the supervisory function with the necessary information concerning money and financial markets, banks ’ liquidity positions and the collateral provided by banks in open market operations. ] therefore the experience of the eurosystem central banks during the financial market turmoil clearly confirmed the existence in practice of relevant information - related synergies between the supervisory and the central banking functions. moreover, the experience made has highlighted the particular importance of a smooth interplay between the central banking and the supervisory functions in certain areas. first, in the area of monitoring and assessing risks to financial stability, central banks can benefit from extended access to supervisory information and intelligence to better understand risks and vulnerabilities for the financial system as a whole. at the same time, the experience made in some countries showed that a possible area for improvement concerns the modalities with which the outcome of the financial stability assessment may trigger concrete supervisory action. the bottom line here is that the supervisory authority should be able to take into consideration the results of the macro - prudential analysis made by the central banks in its supervisory activity. second, in the area of liquidity, there