mr duisenberg presents a few observations about the challenges facing the european union in the years ahead speech given by dr willem f duisenberg, president of the european central bank, at the edmond israel foundation in luxembourg on 11 november 1999. * * * dear mr israel, dear mr waigel, ladies and gentlemen, it is a great honour to be here today to receive the prestigious “ vision of europe ” award. it is with great pleasure that i accept this honour. i perceive this award as encouragement for the continued work of the european central bank ( ecb ) towards making our new common currency a success and delivering its benefits to business, consumers and to european citizens in general. as a central banker, my business is the conduct of monetary policy which is an inherently forward - looking task. given the long time - lags with which monetary policy decisions impact on price levels, the very essence of our work is to estimate today what risks there will be to price stability tomorrow - and to act accordingly. while it appears that the governing council of the ecb has so far shown sound judgement and a steady hand in the conduct of its forward - looking policy, as central bankers we do not pretend to be able to see into the future. what we can do is to assess future trends and their potential impact on price stability on the basis of a thorough examination of past and current developments, using a comprehensive range of analytical and empirical tools. it is with this acute awareness of the limitations of our ability to discern future developments, not only in the monetary and economic spheres, but also in the political realm, that i shall present to you some observations about the challenges facing the european union in the years ahead. using the “ central banker ’ s toolkit ”, i shall attempt to make a modest contribution to the endeavour which gave its name to this award - to shape a “ vision of europe ”. the european union today - integration in “ small steps ” and “ great leaps ” the european union at the end of this century represents an unprecedented, imaginative and successful model for the management of international relations. not only have the original objectives of european integration so far been achieved, namely to ensure peace and prosperity in what has historically been a conflict - ridden part of the world, but also the european community - and later the european union - has managed to adjust to the manifold challenges of its more than 40 - year history. such is its attractiveness that there are now many non - member countries keen to join

of germany, undoubtedly contributed to focusing the minds of european leaders on the maastricht project. in retrospect, it appears that the complementarity of these two methods - continuous incremental change and exceptional bold steps - has been a recurring element in the integration process so far. by using these insights from the history of european integration and by observing the behavioural and institutional patterns established over the past decades, one can endeavour to identify the challenges ahead and assess the eu ’ s capacity to deal with them. allow me to turn now to these very challenges faced by the europe of the future. from a central banker ’ s perspective, three main challenges can be identified, and i shall address them in turn. i should like to begin with the challenge closest to the heart of the president of the ecb, namely that of making economic and monetary union a success. thereafter i shall turn to the challenge of extending the “ european project ” within europe, and finally touch upon europe ’ s role in the wider world. 1. making economic and monetary union a success economic and monetary union as set out in the maastricht treaty transfers the competence for the conduct of a single monetary policy into the hands of a new supranational institution, the eurosystem, with the ecb at its centre. at the same time, economic policies have essentially remained the competence of the member states. with this particular distribution of responsibilities, all involved - central bankers, governments, businesses, and trade unions - indeed face a very special challenge. the eurosystem, for its part, contributes to the success of emu by pursuing its treaty mandate, which is to maintain price stability in the euro area over the medium term. while we can look back on the first 10 months of the operation of our monetary policy with considerable satisfaction, we cannot afford to sit back in idle contentment. the ecb is a novel and unique institution, and in the performance of its tasks it is still navigating uncharted waters. the ecb must formulate a single monetary policy for an economic area made up of 11 distinct national economic policy jurisdictions. our monetary policy decisions must thus always be oriented towards the conditions of this currency zone as a whole, since monetary policy by its nature is one and indivisible. precisely this is our treaty mandate. the ecb must develop into a truly european institution and we are making good progress in that direction. emu has already proved to be a