ECB celebrates decade of international co-operation

Technical co-operation between central banks around the world is "not a one-way street", and banks that were "helped in the beginning have now turned into helpers themselves", according to speakers at a conference marking 10 years of European Central Bank (ECB) technical co-operation programmes with non-European Union (EU) central banks.

The conference, which ran yesterday and today, reviewed the lessons learned from the last 25 years of international central bank co-operation, and discussed ways to further enhance cooperation between central banks.

A particular focus, according to an ECB report on the event, was on the best way to incorporate into national policy settings best practices and international standards advocated by institutions such as the Bank for International Settlements, the International Monetary Fund or EU bodies including the ECB.

The conference also looked at the role of central bank cooperation during and after the crisis, in particular in dealing with the cross-border implications of central banks conducting monetary policy within their respective jurisdictions.

The swap agreements between central banks to mitigate liquidity shortages were mentioned as an example of such cooperation.

"Cooperation between central banks has become a crucial complement to autonomous monetary policy", said Thomas Jordan, chairman of the Swiss National Bank.

A roundtable discussion on institution building for EU accession was chaired by ECB executive board member Jörg Asmussen and featured the governors of the central banks of Macedonia, Bulgaria, Bosnia and Herzegovina, the Czech Republic and Serbia.

Several speakers noted that knowledge-sharing and technical cooperation among central banks "is not a one-way street". Instead, technical assistance has now become technical cooperation. "Those who were helped in the beginning have now turned into helpers themselves," said Asmussen.

Other topics for discussion included the strengthening of financial systems through stronger cooperation on micro- and macro-prudential supervision.

"International cooperation is clearly a condition for avoiding contagious effects of a crisis, given the widespread cross-border ownership of banks", commented Ardian Fullani, governor of the Bank of Albania.