*  *  *  Madam Chair, dear Members of the ECON Committee, it is a pleasure to be here today and to share with you my assessment of the challenges facing Economic and Monetary Union in the years to come.
A possible second reason for the neglect, could have been that income distribution was not a macroeconomic concern, as it was mostly explained by micro factor price theory with the consequence that at the macro level, “trickle-down economics” would be the right approach to economic policy. These views were wrong and, naturally, the crisis shattered both presumptions.