This information facilitates its role in safeguarding financial stability and creates a special advantage in spotting early warning indicators of financial crises and potential situations of economy-wide financial distress. Moreover, as a part of the Eurosystem central banks are integrated in an already functioning network of national and supranational institutions.
Such a network is of decisive importance in the light of the structural change in European financial markets that already has taken place or is likely to come in the near future. After successfully implementing EMU, the next major task Europe faces in the upcoming years is certainly the enlargement of the European Union.