*  *  Introduction  Welcome to the European Central Bank! And welcome to this event which has been jointly organised by the European Commission and the ECB. The topic that we have chosen for this conference is the relationship between financial integration and financial stability.
This reflects the abatement of the market’s anxiety about liquidity and credit risks of Japanese banks against the background of the Bank of Japan’s maintenance of a decisive stance on easy monetary policy as well as the formulation of the framework to restore the stability of Japan’s financial system.