Today, if a bank extends a loan, whether it is to someone who is self-employed, a small business, a small or medium-sized enterprise or a large company, it can bring those loans to us as collateral and say, “Here you go, I need funding”. And the funding is there, at very favourable rates.
For example, prudential supervision is at the national level, monetary policy at the EMU-12 level, and the regulatory framework within which both supervision and monetary policy take place at the EU-15 level. Let me turn now to the relationship between monetary and fiscal policy. It is not too long ago that interest rates in many countries were set by the finance ministry.