hermann remsperger : enlargement of the european union and european and monetary union : maastricht meets copenhagen speech by prof hermann remsperger, member of the directorate of the deutsche bundesbank, at the annual meeting of elec, frankfurt, 7 december 2001. * i. introduction * * the accession of ten central and east european countries as well as malta and cyprus presents the european union with one of the greatest challenges in its history. in june 2001 the gothenburg european council clearly stated that the process of european enlargement is irreversible. it has already been foreseen that the first of the accession countries will participate in the european parliament elections in 2004. what currently looks possible is that there will be a “ big bang ”, an initial major enlargement involving ten candidate countries. the new eu member states also commit themselves to adopt the euro at a later date. contrary to the united kingdom and denmark there will be no “ opt out ” clause. this means that two to three years after enlargement of the european union there could already be a far greater number of countries participating in european monetary union. in my opinion, however, it is actual progress in convergence rather than pressure to keep to a political date which should be the prime focus of the ongoing process of integration. i would like to start today by describing some fundamental economic facts concerning eu enlargement. i then propose to outline the challenges for the candidate countries and the current eu member states in the enlargement process. ii. economic background to eu enlargement the accession of twelve candidate countries to the eu first of all means that the population of the eu is set to rise by more than 100 million, in other words by more than one - quarter. however, gross domestic product would not increase by anywhere near as much. the aggregate nominal gdp of the accession countries is currently less than 5 % of gdp in the eu as a whole. in terms of purchasing power parities, the weight of the accession countries would be roughly twice as much. even if this measurement method is used, however, there are considerable differences between them and the current member states. the candidate countries also demonstrate major structural differences with the eu. the share of agriculture in the gross value added is on average more than twice as high as in the eu, where it is around 2 %. sectoral employment also points to the existence of structural discrepancies. in poland, for example, agriculture contributes

is that the efficient allocation of climate - friendly capital is hindered by insufficient availability of granular, reliable, internationally comparable information. sustainable financial investments rely on ( i ) company disclosure practices that are neither harmonised nor easily auditable, and ( ii ) scoring systems that are heterogeneous across different financial providers, largely subjective and sometimes opaque. as a consequence, the risk of confusing information and misleading claims ( ‘ greenwashing ’ ) is not immaterial. another important issue for financial authorities is the need for adequate consideration of environmental risk in financial institutions ’ risk management, in supervisory rules and practices, and in economic modelling. many central banks and supervisory authorities, including the bank of italy, are making efforts to improve their actions, also benefiting from the exchange of experiences at international level. the g20 sustainable finance working group has undertaken several important initiatives. in its 2021 report, it set practical recommendations in three priority areas : ( i ) strengthening the comparability and interoperability of approaches ; ( ii ) improving reporting and disclosure ; and ( iii ) enhancing the role of international financial institutions in supporting the goals of the paris agreement and of the united nations agenda 2030. as a key legacy of the italian presidency, the group developed the first g20 multi - year roadmap on sustainable finance to guide future works at international level. this year, the indonesian presidency are promoting new analyses on sustainable finance, building on the work plan detailed in that roadmap. further initiatives under our presidency included requesting the imf and other international 3 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches organisations to consider climate - related data needs in preparing a new data gap initiative, and the financial stability board to report on disclosure challenges and data gaps on climate - related financial risks. the fsb was also requested to develop its own roadmap to tackle climaterelated risks for financial stability, to provide a coordination mechanism for standard setting bodies and international organisations to improve firm - level disclosures, data availability, methods and scenarios for vulnerability analyses, and regulatory and supervisory practices and tools. let me just add that, while enhancing sustainable finance is very important, fighting climate change is first and foremost a job for general public policy. as i mentioned earlier, within the g20 framework we were and are committed to promoting fruitful cooperation on actionable policy proposals. a key focus should be the design of a global carbon pricing system, including setting up carbon tax plans and removing fossil fuel subsidies. in these first months