ICM Forum On Restructuring European Exchanges

Presentation by Hans Brouwer, Member of the Executive Board, Amsterdam Exchanges

I am delighted to be here today with such distinguished colleagues and to have the opportunity to participate in this timely seminar.

We are seeing that the European Exchanges are undergoing strategic changes in preparation for an integrated European Securities Market. My assigned presentation merging and consolidating is very wide-reaching, leaving room for extensive discussion in a number of areas well beyond my Amsterdam Exchanges brief.

Today I will limit my remarks to three main areas:

1) the structural changes in financial markets in both a European and Global context and as they pertain to the arrival of the Euro;