Economic governance in the euro area  But the crisis has shown us that this should be no reason for any complacency in the euro area. Persistent losses in competitiveness on the part of individual members in a currency union lead to a build-up of external and internal imbalances. When these unravel, the cost for the affected economies can be large.
*  *  *  The present arrangement whereby the Reserve Bank appears before this Committee every six months was put into place by the current Treasurer ten years ago. During that period, I have appeared eighteen times, with two meetings being missed because of clashes with elections.