The high debt incurred by Spanish households and firms, encouraged by overly accommodative financial conditions but also by optimistic expectations about future income, is now acting as a drag on their consumption and investment decisions. And further exacerbating this is the dizzying deterioration in confidence which, fuelled by the global climate of uncertainty, is pushing households and firms to postpone their spending plans and to strengthen their saving. Pinpointing which specific mechanisms lie behind a certain type of behaviour of economic agents' confidence is always a complex task. But in the current circumstances, and especially in Spain, it would not be hazardous to link much of the behaviour of confidence to that of employment. The intensity with which employment is shrinking is the most distinctive feature of the recession in Spain. In this respect, it repeats traditional patterns of behaviour and shows the persistent weaknesses in the institutional structure of our labour markets that must be corrected. The best way to restore confidence in these circumstances involves a calm and realistic analysis of the problems, reasoned discussion of potential solutions and the rapid implementation of measures deemed appropriate. When faced with a severe recession, neither an alarmist overstatement of the difficulties nor well-meaning calls for confidence in a prompt recovery that will come about spontaneously, with no need for relevant measures, are of any use.
–  We must review our framework for extending ELA;  –  Our analysis needs to focus more than before on liquidity developments in major cross-border bank groups. Where such groups exist, the home country of the parent bank is vulnerable to threats to financial stability in other countries, both where the funding markets are located and those where the group has subsidiaries or branches. For Sweden, this situation is accentuated since our banking system is four times larger than our GDP, and since our major banking groups depend on  6  BIS central bankers’ speeches  funding in international markets to a high degree. The financial stability analysis will have to expand to identify threats early on and to deal with them. We must be alert to potential contagion between unsustainable monetary and fiscal policies in other countries and their potential repercussions on the stability of our own country’s financial groups. –  The crisis showed the need for clear roles and mandates for the authorities involved in crisis management, in particular for resolving problem banks. The Riksbank, the Financial Supervisory Authority, the National Debt Office and the Ministry of Finance had frequent contacts throughout the crisis and coordinated their actions. That said, the division of responsibilities is not clear in all situations and the Riksbank has asked Parliament to clarify the legislation on this and a number of other crisisrelated issues. Matching goals with tools The Riksbank has a fairly well-developed structure for macro-prudential analysis.