Mario Vella: EMU governance - a reality check

Address by Dr Mario Vella, Governor of the Central Bank of Malta, at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) Forum "Reconstructing the Union", Brussels, 23 February 2017.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

The Five Presidents' Report on Completing Europe's Economic and Monetary Union argues that economic and political convergence underpinning EMU needs to go deeper if it is to ensure prosperity for all its members and fairer outcome for its citizens. 

In the first phase, which was meant to be completed in June, the report envisages a number of steps including: 

• a new boost to convergence, employment and growth, through the creation of a euro area system of competitiveness authorities and stronger implementation of the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure; 
• the completion of the banking union and the launch of the capital markets union; 
• the establishment of a new advisory European Fiscal Board; 
• a reorganisation of the European Semester, with greater parliamentary control and accountability.