This should not necessarily be seen as a failure with regard to the initial ambitions, but is also a result of new trends in the financial system making new demands of the regulatory systems, which it is to be welcomed that the political system embraces. And there has also emerged a partially new view on the purposes of government rules and regulations, which has been a process that has taken some time as it is based on a long tradition of fairly detailed provisions regarding which transactions were allowed or forbidden and who should do what. This has applied at least to financial services primarily aimed at the household sector, which has made it difficult to continuously adapt the financial sector to changing market conditions and has entailed considerable costs for the consumers. Now the emphasis is on ensuring that those who produce the services are clear in showing what they have to offer and what risks may be involved in different financial commitments, which gives the customers greater scope to decide for themselves how they want to make their arrangements. Continued pressure for political initiatives The EU has high ambitions to make the European economies more efficient. At the summit meeting in Lisbon two years ago the heads of state and government adopted a strategy aimed at making the EU the most competitive, knowledge-based economic area in the world by the year 2010! Financial integration plays an important role in realising this strategy.
It is reasonable, however, to assume that the weak demand would gradually predominate and put downward pressure on inflation. Preventing a recession must be regarded as one of the Riksbank's main tasks. BIS central bankers’ speeches  7  The equation would be simpler to solve if there were further tools that could be used to stabilise the credit cycle. This is where the new policy area that has arisen after the crisis – macroprudential policy – comes in. The international discussion of how the credit cycle should be taken into account and incorporated into the analysis and policy has to a large degree centred on how macroprudential policy should be conducted. 10 Decision on responsibility for macroprudential policy Many countries have already made some progress here. In many cases, the central bank has been allocated a central role in macroprudential policy, either as an important participant in some form of macroprudential policy organisation, quite often as chair or it has sole responsibility for macroprudential policy. In the United Kingdom, for instance, macroprudential policy has been allocated to a special committee within the Bank of England, the Financial Policy Committee (FPC). The governor and two other committee members are on both the FPC and the Monetary Policy Committee. In Sweden we are lagging behind somewhat with regard to the development of macroprudential policy. It has been unclear what framework politicians intended to establish. The question has been investigated by, for instance, the financial crisis committee, which presented an interim report at the beginning of this year.