II  Ladies and gentlemen, the launch of the euro has manifestly fostered integration of the financial markets of Europe. However, some distinctions must be drawn here. Owing to the single monetary policy and the interlinking of national markets through the TARGET payment system, the interbank money market is meanwhile highly integrated.
This was accompanied by a further weakening of the exchange rate to levels that were appreciably below any reasonable assessment of the real equilibrium rate. The situation called, in other words, for an economic policy realignment -- for what we can call aftercare -- once the acute financial crisis had been checked.