Let me summarise the three main points: •  The Eurosystem is exploring synergies between TARGET2 and T2S, with the ultimate goal of achieving a consolidated Eurosystem market infrastructure. •  We are assessing new service opportunities arising from bringing the two infrastructures closer together. In particular, we are considering enhancements to the TARGET2 services in the field of instant payments. •  The Eurosystem will increase harmonisation of its own collateralisation techniques and procedures. We will also consider the business case for a common Eurosystem collateral management system. As part of this morning’s panel, we will delve a little deeper into this vision and will discuss some of the challenges we can expect the future to bring. I would like to welcome the panel members and Marc Bayle who will moderate this session. 2  BIS central bankers’ speeches
Poland and Hungary stand at around 67 percent (both posting values of no more than 45 percent in 2000), Czechia at 86 percent (from 61 percent in 2000) and Bulgaria at 47 percent (against 24 percent in 2000). As a matter of fact, Romania boasts the fastest growth rate in the group of peer countries with similar trends. Can we, therefore, say that this is proof of a successful catching-up in real terms? Furthermore, can we claim that having a flexible policy framework (including a managed floating exchange rate) helped us in this respect? Allow me to assert that more time is needed in order for these questions to be appropriately answered. However, a general remark can be made: the EU and NATO anchors helped us all make progress as concerns real convergence. The second lesson derives from the answer to the following question: did the strategic decisions on the exchange rate regime and monetary policy framework matter? It is known that some countries in the region (Romania, Poland, Czechia, Hungary) opted for flexible exchange rate arrangements and adopted inflation targeting, while others (Bulgaria and the Baltic states) resorted to a fixed exchange rate regime under a currency board. At first sight, it seems that the latter group of countries are better prepared in terms of euro adoption (the Baltic states have already taken this step but they, being much smaller and more open economies, are a special case), given the fiscal discipline pursued and the nominal convergence stage in those economies.