Press Release

The agreement on how to finance EU enlargement reached at the special summit of EU heads of state or government in Brussels at the end of October marked a "historic breakthrough," paving the way for implementing Europe’s most ambitious integration plan of the decade, the Vice Governor of the Oesterreichische Nationalbank (OeNB), Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell, said at the OeNB’s East-West Conference on "Structural Challenges in Europe," currently taking place in Vienna. 

Tumpel-Gugerell emphasized the need for structural reforms to increase the degree of financial integration and to improve competition and productivity growth in the European economies. In this respect, Europe was faced with the challenge to catch up in those areas where the U.S.A. enjoys a lead over Europe while preserving European values such as social security and social cohesion and seizing Europe’s social and cultural diversity as a competitive advantage. 

Financial supervision was one of the key areas in which reforms are currently under discussion, Tumpel-Gugerell said. These reforms would have an impact also on the prospective EU Member States. The provisions of the Basel II regulatory framework, which is presently being finalized, will be incorporated in an EU directive and thus be binding on the countries of the European Union. The accession countries would have to take these rules into account when building and reforming their financial sectors in the run-up to EU membership. Close cooperation between national supervisors, who for the benefit of systemic stability should collaborate strongly with the national central banks, was the key to efficient and effective financial supervision in Europe. 

The OeNB’s East-West conference focused, among other things, on the question of how the Lisbon strategy can be implemented to make Europe the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world by 2010. Discussions centered on structural reforms in the tax systems, the corporate sectors and in network industries, before turning to the adequate policy mix in Europe. 

The OeNB Vice Governor stressed that investment in education had to be the key element of structural policy measures. The level of qualification of the workforce would be one yardstick for an economy’s competitiveness. Therefore, investment in improving educational systems, in research and development and new technologies had to be stepped up. 

The OeNB’s annual East-West conference hightlights the Bank’s special analytical expertise in and research focus on Central and Eastern Europe, which will continue to play a prominent role in the OeNB’s activities also in the future.