It is in my view that improving perseverance and competitiveness as key factors to a healthy competition. Banks must escalate their business scale in order to achieve a higher level of economic of scale and concurrently an improved governance. 55.
On top of all this, we have also seen a sizeable appreciation of the euro since 2002, particularly against the dollar, taking it back to the level prevailing at its initial launch. From that short outline, it is clear that the economic and financial environment of the past seven years has provided a stiff test of the single monetary policy.