*  *  *  Ladies and Gentlemen, More than two years after the US subprime crisis triggered world-wide financial turbulence and one year after the collapse of Lehman Brothers exacerbated the crisis dramatically, the title of this conference rightly suggests that crisis management is at a crossroads.
Proposals to further strengthen multilateral surveillance are still being discussed by the EU Commission, the Council and the Parliament. Financial assistance to states in difficulty must be made operationally effective. It must be possible to intervene promptly in the securities markets and directly in favour of banks, with flexible procedures that do not penalize countries that respect the rules of the Union.