Paul-Henri Spaak’s words might lead one to think that this myopia affects only the larger countries of Europe. This might be true. But smaller countries can suffer from another type of short-sightedness. Smaller countries are used to having a more limited role on the international scene. They tend to leave major decisions to the larger countries, acting more as critical observers.
Hence, there was political will to make the financial system more resilient. The Council changed the wording of the forward guidance in the recommendation from September 2018: "The Council expects to recommend a further increase of the buffer rate by 0.5 percentage points in the 1st quarter of 2019 unless the build-up of risks in the financial system slows down considerably."