Before coming to policy issues related to the fulfilment of the individual convergence criteria, I would like to briefly address two other general issues that I regard to be crucial for the examination of the economic convergence process: the reliability of the statistical base and the legal framework for central banks.
The assessment of economic convergence is highly dependent on the quality and integrity of the underlying statistics supplied by the countries concerned. The ECB, therefore, has repeatedly emphasised that Members States should consider the quality and integrity of their statistics as a matter of priority.