A few days ago, on 7 February, we celebrated the thirtieth birthday of the European Union and of the Maastricht Treaty. I was personally present during the signature of this Treaty, which promoted “the strengthening of economic and monetary union, ultimately including a single currency”. We have successfully established a monetary Eurosystem, however a real financial Eurosystem must now develop. Let me therefore share some proposals on the Banking Union and the Capital Markets Union (CMU), which are the two cornerstones for such a financial Eurosystem. We are all aware the Banking Union is for 19 countries, and tomorrow 21, while the CMU is for 27. But allow me to mix them today with a common core – the euro area – and a common purpose – the right funding of our economies. I will quote two thriller books today. You may rightly think of The postman always rings twice: Andrea Enria and myself already conveyed this message quite plainly regarding the Banking Union during the last Eurofi session in September. You may also think that these projects are more or less stuck. It is true that there has been deadlock and I will list the bad reasons for this. But there are also good reasons why we can break this deadlock now and give the projects of Banking Union and CMU new momentum (I). I will then describe the new possible steps for the Banking Union (II) and the CMU (III). I.
We must channel it towards productive investments and innovative projects. In view of these high stakes, the Eurosystem warmly welcomed the launch of a new CMU action plan by the Commission in September 2020. Its sixteen legislative and non-legislative initiatives will help turn Europe into a genuine single financing market. The main issue now is to ensure the concrete implementation of the CMU. We still need to better prioritise our actions ex ante, and monitor them ex post. The CMU will not be implemented overnight and remains a long-term project. Developing a monitoring framework with selected priorities and indicators is therefore 3/4  BIS central bankers' speeches  warranted, especially as the CMU enters an important legislative phase in 2022. As part of the CMU, we have another major financial stability issue to tackle over the next few years: European banks’ overreliance on third-country CCPs for the clearing of financial derivatives. Around 80% of interest rate swaps denominated in euro are still cleared in the UK; this situation cannot continue forever. For fear of market disruption, the Commission recently decided to extend equivalence for UK CCPs until end June 2025. However, Commissioner Mairead McGuinness made it crystal-clear that this extension was the last one, and that the three next years were to be used specifically for a rebalancing of clearing to the EU. I could not agree more.