Easy access to information also allows investors to better differentiate across economies, borrowers and companies. Ultimately, this helps to lessen herding behaviour and contagion when market volatility increases. This is why transparency is so crucial. And in recent years, a lot of progress has been made to enhance transparency and to facilitate access to information as well as its dissemination to market participants.
My second conclusion is that reforms that aim to improve the quality of institutions can help unlock the productive potential of our economies and can provide the basis for a renewed process of real economic convergence – a process that would not only strengthen social cohesion but also the belief in the benefits of our currency union.