Progress is nevertheless being made in one specific but important area – the financial market architecture with the project of a European banking union. Properly designed, the banking union will strengthen financial stability in the euro area. It will then close up an unguarded flank of monetary union, thus helping to safeguard it as a union of stability.
Both must be monitored by a rigorous and credible surveillance framework. Currently there is an open and frank exchange of views about the concrete design of the new surveillance framework. Let me give you a little more detail about the ECB’s views on such a framework.