That’s important for every country, for Italy, for France, but also for Germany. And you may wish to remember that we were one of the first countries to infringe these rules. Speaking of France, the French President Emmanuel Macron has made commitments in the order of billions of euro to the “yellow vest” protesters.
The deficiencies of the European institutional framework in these key areas have, it is now clear, played a key role in destabilising European financial markets. I will return to this shortly, but first, a brief overview of developments. The first ten years: swift progress towards euro area financial integration Financial markets progressed steadily towards integration in the years following the introduction of the euro.