New technologies and the intensification of competition point to comprehensive consolidation in the banking sector in the next few years. As a consequence, banking supervisors are naturally facing correspondingly great challenges. Clearly, questions of systemic stability are moving to the top of the agenda for banking supervisors. IV.
In only 15 years, these countries managed to restore and entrench democratic institutions and market economies, replacing the communist ones that were imposed there before. The accession of ten new countries to the EU was an important milestone in a process that will lead to the eventual adoption of the euro by these new Member States.