I have no doubt that the quality of the discussions we have today will allow us to deepen our understanding of these challenges and, hopefully, allow us to draw some useful conclusion in terms of economic policy. I leave the floor now to Mr. Isidro González, Deputy Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, thanking him as well as you all for your presence here today, and thanking Mr. Senén Florensa, President of the Executive Committee of IEMed, for the cooperation in the organisation of this event. Now, Isidro, the floor is yours. 3/3
Convergence Programs of the new Member States should include ambitious Medium Term Objectives to ensure that not only the Maastricht criteria are met, but most importantly, the emergence of excessive deficit situations is avoided and the risks of taking recourse to exchange rate adjustments after joining the ERM2 (and, eventually, the euro area) are minimized. The well functioning single market for all goods and services, including infrastructure networks, as well as pursuing the National Reform Programmes in the context of the reinforced Lisbon agenda is the other pillar for the success of the euro area and for the new Member States in particular. Estonia has been a de facto member of the euro area since the inception of its independent currency in 1992. Fixing the local currency to D-mark, and later to the euro meant that the monetary policy decisions were not made in Estonia. Estonia's currency board regime implies prudent fiscal stance that has been largely adhered to since 1992, resulting in our general government having accumulated a relatively large net asset position of around 10 percent of GDP. A solid budgetary position and early deregulation of product and capital markets implies that Estonia has been well placed to absorb both positive and negative shocks during the last 15 years. Deregulation and reform in preparation of the EU membership has allowed us to fully integrate our economic and financial systems with the Single Market. However, that kind of approach requires, in today's conjuncture, forward-looking structural reforms in almost all EU member states, e.g.