FRANKFURT, May 29 (Xinhua) -- Facing a series of challenges at current stage, internally and externally, Europe cannot afford standstill, former president of the Eurogroup Jeroen Dijsselbloem said here on Tuesday.

Dijsselbloem, who served Eurogroup president from January 2013 to January 2018, delivered a keynote speech at the Eighth Frankfurt Finance Summit, titled "READY, STEADY, GO! Who is ready to set the pace in challenging times?".

In his speech, Dijsselbloem expressed his concern regarding the euro area, such as slipping competitiveness, challenges surrounding the policy implementation to reach sustainability goals, lack of sufficient and efficient tools for the preparation for absorption of economic shock in future, huge pressure on open liberal economies and trades etc.

"With average GDP growth rate of 2.4 percent, 2017 was the best year for the eurozone since at least 10 years."

However, he reminded of still high unemployment as well as sovereign debt ratio in a number of countries, against the backdrop of some normalization, or slowdown of the economic growth since the beginning of this year.

Particularly, he was worried by the outcome of the 2018 IMD Competitiveness Index released recently, which showed Germany as "motor" of eurozone had dropped within a couple of years down to the 15th place, after Qatar.

In terms of taxation as element of competitiveness stance, Dijsselbloem criticized the high tax pressure on labour forces in Europe, which has been hindering the function of European labour markets.

Besides, he urged to expand investment consistently on education, research and development in Europe.

Speaking of financial sector, Dijsselbloem called for very close collaboration between EU's and British regulators and supervisors, which could help minimize divergence and make financial system stable, given the course of Brexit would be hardly predictable.

"Banking union must be absolute priority." He underlined that the work to clean up balance sheet of banks in the euro area should continue as the political pressure stayed on, even if it produced legacy issues like non-performing loans (NPLs).

"Risk reduction is needed before we take next step in the banking union," Dijsselbloem said, adding that "fat banks" need to reduce cost in line with huge investment in technology.

Organized by dfv Maleki Group, Frankfurt Main Finance e.V. and the Frankfurt Institute for Risk Management and Regulation, Frankfurt Finance Summit addresses CEOs, CFOs, CROs, central bank representatives, supervisors and regulators from more than 20 countries and regions, touching upon the topics that currently move the finance industry.