"Staying the course" means sticking to our growth strategy. It means continuing to reduce debt levels that weigh on growth and starve small and medium enterprises of financing. It means forging ahead with structural reforms to increase economic competitiveness, attract private investors and ensure that SMEs facing persistent financial bottlenecks have access to long-term funding through the European Investment Bank. It means taking forward the debate on the further deepening and strengthening of our economic and monetary union. And it means building a healthy financial sector maintained through a Banking Union.
We are making real progress in all these areas and Banking Union is becoming a reality. Next year, the European Central Bank will take over the supervision of the eurozone's systemically important banks. This will happen as soon as these institutions have been comprehensively assessed to ensure the complete transparency of their balance sheets, and to ensure that losses are realised and recapitalisations completed where necessary. This will provide the solid foundations we need for normal lending to return to the eurozone.
In the meantime, work on the final piece of the Banking Union puzzle — the Single Resolution Mechanism — will continue. This will provide the tools to resolve failing banks efficiently while minimising the costs to taxpayers and the real economy.
Overall, it is also fair to say that achievements in programme countries have been significant. As some of these countries prepare to exit their support programmes, the outlook for the eurozone has improved. The upcoming exits prove that our approach is working: Via the European Stability Mechanism, we temporarily provide loans at attractive interest rates to eurozone countries in crisis. In return we ask for strict macro-economic conditionality.
This is good news as long as nothing is taken for granted. Any complacency would jeopardise the recovery. Our response to the crisis, which is based on an integrated approach by Member States and European institutions, is beginning to deliver results. Europe is becoming less vulnerable to external shocks, more competitive in global markets and more attractive to international investors.
And we will continue on our course. We have everything in place to emerge stronger from the crisis, with more sustainable growth and more jobs.
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© Wall Street Journal
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