Provided there is a will to undertake a fundamental reform of corporate taxation, a European approach would be helpful, in my view. EU-wide rules for the tax base have the potential to make taxation in the internal market more transparent and efficient. The European Commission has already presented proposals to this effect, and Germany and France have expressly thrown their weight behind this initiative.
With this monetary easing and with the strengthening in the pace of economic activity in the second half of the year, we now project annual average growth of between 2 and 3 per cent in 2001. For next year, we see output expanding at a rate slightly above the Bank's estimate of potential output growth of 3 per cent.