The collapse of Banco Ambrosiano in 1982 and the difficulties at Johnson Matthey Bankers in 1984 brought the risks inherent in the system into sharp relief once more, and there was a renewed push to establish consolidated supervision across 26  borders . Through its participation in international fora, the Bank sought “to promote close supervisory co-operation, to influence supervisory developments and to enhance the effectiveness of its own supervisory effort through obtaining clearer pictures of the nature of the business operations engaged in by the institutions it supervises 27  and of the methods and operations of its international counterparts” . The idea of a level playing field began to emerge in the international setting as well as the importance of supervisory convergence in an increasingly globalised sector; this, alongside crises, motivated the evolution of regulation and supervision to a large extent during the latter decades of the twentieth century. In addition, the increasing size (including in the present day) of the financial sector and its contribution to UK GDP underscored the importance of maintaining stability in the financial system, and a more active type of supervision began to emerge.
It is also a popular success; it inspires trust which is the core value of a currency. The latest standard Eurobarometer poll conducted in spring 2021 reported that 79% of the population in the 19 countries using the euro believe that having the currency is good for the EU. That’s up from 66 percent a decade ago. Even wellknown nationalist politicians, including in my own country, have dropped or backed-off their anti-euro stances because they have concluded that the policy is an electoral dead-end. Obviously as Governor of the Banque de France and a committed European, I enjoy reading out those numbers. Yet I do not wish to be simplistic or Panglossian. The euro area has had problems over the years, most notably resulting in the sovereign debt crisis in the early 2010s. That crisis was a  Page 4 sur 9 reminder that by forging a currency union before a political union existed, we were doing something unprecedented. Yet European political leaders have ultimately proved themselves to be pragmatic, backing the European Central Bank in its defence of the euro. Lessons were learned and when the Covid crisis hit in 2020, the EU gave the region’s economy appropriate fiscal support. The combined stimulus provided by the EU and national governments was comparable to that of the U.S. and the U.K. Meanwhile the ECB did its part in supplying monetary stimulus also on par with that of other developed countries.