That said, irrespective of the instruments that may soon be adopted, both the objective and the main criteria that have been followed in recent years should, in my opinion, be maintained. The objective is clear and leaves little room for discussion: to have solid institutions that are able to contribute effectively to the financing of households and businesses. And it would also be useful to preserve the main criteria used hitherto in the financial restructuring. Specifically, I am referring to the anticipation of problems, minimisation of the use of public funds, reducing capacity, the conditionality of assistance, the emphasis on downsizing balance sheets and the promotion of transparency. First it is very important to anticipate problems. The primary obligation of a banking supervisor is to ensure at all times that the credit institutions operating are solvent and viable. However, good supervisors should not limit themselves to analysing the present, but should also anticipate possible scenarios of non-viability that might arise in the future and attempt to reduce problems to a minimum before they emerge. When the crisis broke, the 45 Spanish savings banks then existing were all solvent and viable. However, taking into account the new economic and financial environment stemming from the crisis, it was possible to foresee that while some of them were very well-managed and unquestionably sound, many others, within a matter of years or months, might eventually be non-viable.
So as not to overstay my welcome, and given that next week several meetings involving these European institutions are to be held, I propose that we assume that these meetings will eventually see the adoption of the decisions needed to turn the markets around. This assumption about what the European institutions will do allows me to conclude my address by talking exclusively about our national problems. What must Spain do to emerge from the crisis? As I said at the outset, the conjunction of three economic crises, and in particular the worsening of the sovereign debt crisis, mean that precise economic policy implementation is extremely difficult at present, although the diagnosis as to what must be done is relatively simple and widely known. At present, what is most important is to promptly pursue an ambitious reform of our labour market institutions, while continuing to make headway on two key fronts: budgetary consolidation and financial system restructuring. In the past two years significant steps have been taken in both these areas, but to achieve fully satisfactory results, perseverance with the path of reform is needed. Starting with the reform of the labour market institutions, certain measures have been taken recently. But the truth is that, since the outset of democracy, Spain has not been capable of making any meaningful progress in this area, whereas most European countries have used the past three decades to reform their labour systems, in order to achieve higher levels of flexibility and job protection, i.e. greater “flexicurity”.