Lars Heikensten: The Riksbank and the euro Speech by Mr Lars Heikensten, Governor of the Sveriges Riksbank, at the SEB's EMU seminar, Cirkus, Stockholm, 4 September 2003. *  *  *  Let me begin by thanking the organisers for inviting me to speak at this event. The past few months have certainly been hectic for those of us working at the Riksbank. We are undoubtedly in the eye of the storm and feature almost daily in the EMU debate. Moreover, we are affected more directly and tangibly by the result of the referendum than most people. I can take my own diary as an example; if the result is a “yes” vote, I will be in Frankfurt for a day or two at least every other week, while if the result is a “no”, the visits will be reduced to a few hours four times a year. Given this, the temptation to jump into the debate head first has been strong at times. However, we have decided not to participate in any campaigns. The Riksbank as an institution took a stand in favour of EMU membership in the form of submission responses in both 1994 and 1997. However, the Executive Board has now decided to refrain from taking a stand in connection with the referendum. The personal views of the various members of the Executive Board have nevertheless been known for some time. Five of us are in favour, one against.
Starting from the fact that the role of central banking in the development of the economy is best seen in the development of the institution itself, please allow me to draw your attention to some of the more significant moments of that development. At the very beginning, the Bank was conducting only a few central banking operations: distribution od cash, payment operations, control, i.e. in today's language, supervision of banks. Its first manager was Dr. Todor Mirovski, at that time manager of Makedonska Stopanska Banka, while from the beginning of 1947 until June 1950, Aleksandar Bogoev. From a functional viewpoint, the central banking in the past 60 years may be conditionally divided into three periods. We could call the first period pre-institutional (1946-1970), the second was a period of formal institutionalization (1971-1991), and the third was a period of monetary independence (1992-2006). We denote the first period as pre-institutional since there was an institution established only on a federal level - central bank. And, as you are well aware, the main feature of post-war life in all spheres, including banking as a whole, was centralization. Consequently, all communal banks immediately  BIS Review 100/2006  1  became branches of the National Bank of, at that time, Federal Yugoslavia - Head Office of NRM, engaged in attracting funds, extending credits in the amount of the funds attracted, performing limited activities in the international payment operations, performing vault activities for executing the budgets of the local units, etc. The Head Office, i.e.