crawling peg or an exchange rate managed by a currency board - mostly peg their currency to the euro only or to a basket in which the euro predominates. 1 the trend to use the euro as an anchor currency is becoming ever stronger, as hungary ’ s recent move from a euro / us - dollar basket to a clean euro link within the framework of the country ’ s crawling peg regime shows, and will continue to strengthen further in the upcoming years. as a result, the euro will also gain importance as an intervention and reserve currency in the region. ladies and gentlemen, the central and eastern european countries which are involved in accession negotiations with the european union are confronted with the basic question of how economic and monetary union features in the overall context of enlargement. as far as we can judge today, we see the economic and monetary policy integration of the candidate countries proceeding in three steps. in a first step, the candidates will accede to the european union, then they will participate in the erm ii, the exchange rate mechanism of the union, and finally, they will introduce the euro as their national currency. let me concentrate primarily upon the first of these three steps, thereby focusing upon those tasks the candidate countries are facing today and will face in the near future. in the period leading up to accession, the applicant countries will be confronted with two challenges. first, the accession candidates will have to fulfill the economic conditions for membership in the european union, as defined by the european council in copenhagen back in 1993. these conditions consist in establishing a functioning market economy and attaining sufficient competitiveness to participate in the single market. fulfillment of these conditions will allow the accession countries to integrate successfully into the economic and monetary cooperation within the union just like those incumbent eu member states which have not yet entered the euro area for the time being. let me make very clear that fulfillment of the maastricht convergence criteria is not a prerequisite for membership in the european union. still, a reasonable degree of macroeconomic prudence is essential in the run - up to eu accession, as stability - oriented policies facilitate structural change and foster the catching - up process in central and eastern europe. in this context, it is important to underline that there are no institutional constraints on exchange rate policies during the preaccession period. any exchange rate regime is feasible during this stage, provided that it contributes to and is embedded in an overall set of policies that is sound and effectively geared toward stability. coming from austria

law laid down exactly what assets the snb was permitted to invest in and what securities were eligible as collateral in lombard business. in future, the national bank will be responsible for making these decisions itself. at the time when the new law enters into force, we shall publish two directives. one will spell out the technical preconditions for our monetary operations ; the other will set out how we shall use our extended investment policy scope. my colleague, philipp hildebrand, in his address will present our first ideas on this subject. the new law vests specific responsibilities in the snb with respect to the oversight of payment and securities settlement systems. up to now, our oversight of the sic interbank payment system was based on a contractual relationship. as from next year, our responsibilities in this domain will be based on the law and will extend to the oversight of all major payment and settlement systems. my colleague, niklaus blattner, will discuss this subject in more detail in his remarks. the new law also provides that the snb shall issue implementing regulations in the area of minimum reserves, statistics and the oversight of payment and settlement systems. the draft of an ordinance has already been submitted to the interested parties for consultation. in the field of minimum reserves and statistics we intend in principle to take up the provisions already existing in the federal law on banks and savings banks and the federal law on investment funds. as regards the oversight of payment and settlement systems, we are advancing into totally new territory, where for the time being only the main principles have been defined. this implies pioneering work in the implementation.