Dutch Finance Minister and president of the Euro-Group, Jeroen Dijsselbloem.

Jeroen Dijsselbloem, Dutch Finance Minister and president of the Euro-Group, will be the main speaker in a question and answer session taking place tomorrow at the University of Malta.

Speaking in London a short while ago, Dijsselbloem said that the EU financial sector was in a much better shape than it was before but some eurozone banks were still in trouble because they had too many non-performing loans.

He said that to ensure their long-term survival, banks needed to take drastic action to strengthen their financial positions.

Dijsselbloem was elected Eurogroup president by euro area finance ministers first in 2013 and for a second term in 2015. He is the second person to hold the post since the Eurogroup was founded, the other being the Luxembourgian Jean-Claude Juncker.

Since February 2013, Dijsselbloem has also been the chair of the Board of Governors of the European Stability Mechanism, a permanent EU agency based in Luxembourg that provides financial assistance in the form of loans to eurozone countries or as new capital to banks in difficulty.

Its aim is to support banks which find themselves in trouble and in doing so help avoid instability in the financial markets, ultimately protecting the interests of depositors and taxpayers.

■ Jeroen Dijsselbloem will be addressing the audience tomorrow at 2pm at the Arts Lecture Theatre of the University of Malta in Msida. The activity is being led by the Institute for European Studies of the University of Malta in collaboration with the Embassy of the Kingdom of the Netherlands in Malta.