Finally, the concerns of non-euro area Member States that the European Central Bank’s capital key would be used as a reference for raising fund contributions have been addressed by the decision to make them proportional to bank liabilities, less own funds and guaranteed deposits, which significantly reduces the participation costs of countries with relatively lower degrees of financial intermediation, such as Romania (34.8 percent of GDP in 2013) or even Poland (53.2 percent of GDP). Still, I think there is one particular issue where equal treatment of euro area and non-euro area members of the Banking Union is not ensured, namely the access to euro liquidity. Unlike euro area countries, which have access to financing from the European Central Bank, in non-euro countries liquidity will have to be provided by their respective central banks, including in euro. I believe there is a need to start discussions with the European Central Bank on short-term access to euro liquidity against non-euro collateral of appropriate quality for domesticallyowned credit institutions. Of course, I see this access as an emergency facility, which can be tapped only under severe or imminent stress to non-Eurozone host country financial stability. The issue is relevant for Central and Eastern European countries, among which Romania, where a significant degree of currency substitution in euro persists from before 2008 in terms of the stock of both loans and deposits (in Romania, more than 50 percent in the case of loans and 30 percent in the case of deposits).
I do think that the severity with which the crisis hit the European Union and the scramble for solutions that followed do not indicate that the European Union is an intrinsically flawed project, but rather an incomplete one. In other words, going only halfway does not pay off. Thank you for your attention. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches