Budapest, 13/09/2001 (Agence Europe) - A two-day conference on the candidate countries and single currency opened on 13 September in Budapest, with the participation, in particular, of Pedro Solbes, European Commissioner for Economic and Monetary Affairs; Eugenio Domingo-Solans, ECB Executive Board Member; Christa Randzio-Plath, Chair of the EP Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs; Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, EBRD Vice-President; Zsigmond Jarai, President of the National Bank of Hungary; and Janos Martonyi, Hungarian Foreign Minister (who gave a speech during the dinner on Thursday evening).
On Thursday afternoon, work covered the impact that single currency would have on the "real economy" with, among others, Ricardo Largo from the EBRD, Ireneusz Kaminski from the EuroInfoCentre in Warsaw, and George Cojacaru, President of the International Chamber of Commerce in Romania. On Friday morning, Pedro Solbes was to speak of "thirty months of the euro", while the afternoon session was devoted to the practical aspects of transition to the euro for candidate countries, with the participation of Antti Heinonen from the ECB, Michal Tomasek, President of the Commission for European Integration of the Prague Bankers' Association, and Istvan Garai, President of the National Consumers' Association of Hungary.