Brussels, 09/02/2000 (Agence Europe) - The European Banking Federation (EBF) has announced that it has set up a new Committee dealing with Economic and Monetary Affairs (EMAC), that will become an interlocutor for the ECB on such matters. The new committee, formed of chief economists of leading European banks and European banking associations, will represent the views of the banking sector on economic and monetary matters. Its chairman, Martin Hüfner, Chief Economist of Hypo Vereinsbank, welcomed the prospect of "permanent dialogue between the ECB and the European banks". He said that "for the European banking community this is an invaluable opportunity to feed its views directly into the ECB's thinking".