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The meeting focused essentially on the major economic developments and decisions over the recent weeks. I think we can say that both of us agree that the European Union is acting with determination on several fronts to allow confidence to come back and to reinforce stability. Stability that is also important for growth. Our most important concern is growth and jobs and we agree that without financial stability this cannot be achieved...
After the response on the Annual Growth Survey and on youth unemployment, the Commission has also specified its ideas on how to increase discipline and incentives to implement national reforms that are crucial for the rebalancing of our economies. We have now put some ideas on the table for discussion: the so-called contractual arrangements with the Commission and a new competitiveness and convergence instrument that acts as an incentive for reform. I think this is a further important stepping stone in building an architecture for our Economic and Monetary Union.
On financial supervision and regulation, there was, as you know, an agreement on a Single Supervisory Mechanism, that is the backbone of our future Banking Union. We are going on with our proposals on the Banking Union. Financial regulation has been further stepped up through agreement on capital requirements and bankers' bonuses. The Commission will come forward with a proposal for a Single Resolution Mechanism by summer. All in all, we are working full steam to avoid citizens having to shoulder the consequences of a financial or debt crisis in the future. We are now establishing a Banking Union and an Economic and Monetary Union architecture that, hopefully, will prevent us to have some kind of crisis like the one we have been experiencing - like the one in Cyprus.
And this is my final point. I am happy that now an agreement was found, and this agreement ended more than a year of uncertainty regarding Cyprus. I hope this agreement will help the country on its way back to financial stability, to sustainable public finances and to a business model that is worth its name. It will also help to restore stability and confidence in the euro as a whole.
To conclude, Chancellor Faymann and I share the conviction that we need European answers to common problems; that Europe is not the problem, but it is the solution; that we need to work together at European level in the spirit of solidarity and responsibility. Staying the course is crucial now. Our efforts must not be relaxed in terms of growth-friendly fiscal consolidation, structural reforms for competitiveness and targeted investment for growth, having in mind the main concern of our citizens which is growth and jobs.