26.06.2018  Taking up of office by the Governor of the Banco de España  Pablo Hernández de Cos Governor  Honourable Ministers and Authorities, ladies and gentlemen, dear colleagues and friends, I believe today calls, above all, for a round of gratitude. First, I wish to thank Ministers Calviño and Montero for their presence here today. May they rest assured I am firmly committed to maintaining the close and loyal collaboration traditionally offered by the Banco de España to the Ministries for the Economy and Finance. I also wish to thank the previous minister, Román Escolano, for his presence at this ceremony, and for his proposal and defence of my appointment before the Parliamentary Committee for the Economy and Competitiveness. And my gratitude extends to the representatives of the Committee accompanying us today. I undertake to make every effort to improve the capacity of the Banco de España to face the challenges addressed during the Parliamentary Committee hearing. Ministers, as I am surrounded above all by colleagues, I trust you will allow me to continue in a more informal tone. As you know, including a three-year tour at the European Central Bank, I now have two decades behind me at the Banco de España. Professionally speaking, this is, then, my home. It is a real honour for me to have been appointed governor.
My assessment is that the problems we saw in March this year did not spread quite as much as they would have done if Ba-  5 See Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (2023). 6 [30]  sel III had not been introduced. The banks now have more capital and more liquidity and are therefore better equipped to withstand various forms of shock.6 However, it should be noted that Basel III is not yet fully implemented.7 Negotiations are currently under way on how the final parts of Basel III will be introduced in the EU and some of the proposals entail less strict rules than those set out in the Basel standards. I would like to take this opportunity to emphasise the importance of full, timely and consistent implementation of all Basel standards in all countries, including the EU. Although the events of March did not hit the EU particularly hard, we need to learn lessons from what has happened in other parts of the world. This is important to ensure that the risks do not materialise in our part of the world as well. So what is new in the current situation and how do the existing global standards for bank regulation compare with this background? First of all, I would like to emphasise that I am not primarily talking about the situation or the regulations in Sweden, but more about the global standards, as it is these that are now being questioned.