That explains why we are always ready to welcome overseas financial institutions to London, why we rigorously avoid discrimination on grounds of nationality in our financial market dealings, and why we have greatly welcomed the decisions by German, French and Swiss banks in particular to concentrate many of their wholesale market activities in London in recent years. Europe needs a broad and deep market like London to rival those in Tokyo and New York. I would not wish, today, to talk at length about the preparations being made in the City for EMU. Partly because this afternoon, in London, we shall be releasing our latest quarterly report on Practical Issues Arising from the Introduction of the Euro, which sets out in some detail the progress that has been made over the last three months, and how we propose to take things forward. In short, we are confident that London will be as well prepared for EMU as BIS Review 1/1997  -5-  any market, when the time comes. As we say in that paper, we are fully involved in preparing the wholesale financial sector of the economy for the euro and, of course, in the extensive work being undertaken at the European Monetary Institute. For the most part that work is proceeding successfully and we are happy with the decisions made. Some are, inevitably, compromises. But that is what building Europe is all about, and we are always ready to seek compromise solutions.
Mr. Davies gives his personal view of EMU Speech by the Deputy Governor of the Bank of England, Mr. Howard Davies, at the EFMA Conference on the Single Currency in Brussels on 16/12/96. Like many British men of my generation, I spent a good part of my spare time as a boy involved with the Scouting movement, first as a Wolf Cub, then as a Boy Scout. I have to confess that I have forgotten many of the useful things I learned in the Boy Scouts. I can no longer light a camp-fire using only two sticks. I can no longer tie a clove hitch. But I can remember the Boy Scout’s motto - ‘Be Prepared’. And that motto strikes me as a useful injunction to bear in mind, as we approach the D-Day for Economic and Monetary Union of 1 January 1999. It applies, I think, just as much to those who may, for one reason or another, find themselves outside the first group of EMU countries, as it does to those who firmly intend to surf on the first wave. The preparations, though, may be slightly different in each case. Now some of you may think, if you read the British press, or hear echoes of the British political debate on EMU through the media elsewhere in Europe, that in present circumstances one of the other pieces of advice which Lord Baden-Powell handed down to Boy Scouts who followed him would be more appropriate.