Brussels, 15/11/2001 (Agence Europe) - The President of the European Central Bank calls on the regions and local authorities "to contribute to sound expenses by exercising control over public spending". For his first visit to the Committee of the Regions, Wim Duisenberg spoke to the Committee's members on Wednesday, stressing the "responsibility" of local and regional authorities in relation to public spending and structural reforms, and placing emphasis on the "importance of their role to explain the negative consequences that price differences at local level have, which the more they are rooted in the economy, the worse they are for the economy". Wim Duisenberg nevertheless regarded it normal that regional disparities between price levels should persist within a monetary union, due to the differences in development and the different sensitivities to external events (increase in the price of oil…). These "differences do not effect and are not effected by monetary policy, the ECB can only have an effect on prices in the euro zone as a whole", he pointed out.
The President of the ECB also made an assessment of preparations for the euro: "governments are fully prepared, local authorities virtually ready everywhere, and banks and large companies fully prepared". As for SMEs and retailers, so far way behind, the ECB takes "some comfort" from the latest Commission survey that demonstrates that SMEs "are catching up rapidly".