policy and of the way it is implemented. in doing so a central bank avoids two opposed inappropriate behaviours. the first would be to give no guidance on its monetary policy and to communicate an unstructured, very complex and partially self - contradictory representation of the economic situation ; such behaviour would not permit market participants and public opinion to be able to form pertinent expectations on future monetary policy decisions. on the other hand, a central bank cannot in normal times preannounce with an arithmetic precision its future monetary policy decisions. these must be derived from the full consistency between strategy and monetary policy concept, the medium - term price stability goal and the economic situation which is itself moving and always incorporates elements of uncertainty, chances and risks that can materialize. what is important is that at the moment of the decision, after having had the possibility of analysing all pertinent information and data, market participants can correctly predict our decision thanks to their intimate knowledge of our policy. ecb ’ s communication in practice some features of the ecb are bringing about major additional challenges for external communications. in particular, the ecb operates in a multicultural environment with 12 different cultures and 10 different languages in the euro area and 25 cultures and 20 languages within the scope of the european system of central banks. and, the ecb was given the very ambitious challenge to be fully credible from day one, without track record and to issue a currency which would be immediately as credible as the most credible legacy currencies. in the practical implementation of the communication policy we make use of a wide range of communication tools. i will mention only a few of them here : first, the monthly press conferences after the first governing council meeting in each month. the introductory statement at the press conference is a key element in our communication as it conveys the collective view of the ecb ’ s governing council on the monetary policy stance in real time. in fact, the decision to hold a press conference after each policy meeting was unheard of among major central banks prior to the euro. to use real time detailed communication and press conferences in this way was a logical decision, bearing in mind ( i ) the attention the ecb would receive as a major player in the world financial markets and the global economy, ( ii ) the necessity to “ frontload ” the public and the markets with information on the thinking of the new institution and ( iii ) the interest as regards communication at national level through many different languages of having timely public terms

of reference. i do not hesitate to say that this new ecb concept of real time detailed communication has been an important element of the new paradigm in central banking communication. second, there is the ecb ’ s monthly bulletin, which is always published one week after the press conference. it gives a more detailed explanation of the analysis behind the monetary policy decisions. it regularly reports on information collected by the ecb, such as the bank lending survey. importantly, it now also includes the ecb staff projections four times a year. an advance copy is published immediately after the press conference following the council meeting. this is another example where the ecb has gone very far in making its policy transparent and communicating its economic assessment in real time. the monthly bulletin also contains articles which provide insights into the principles governing our policy. third, the members of the governing council members give interviews and speeches to many different audiences. in them they explain the decisions taken and the ecb ’ s view on current topics within our sphere of competence. the decentralised nature of the eurosystem is an asset especially for communications with the general public. the governors address in their country their national public in their own language. they are very well placed to participate in economic debates taking place in their home country. finally, the ecb publishes a large array of statistics, adding essential information on the euro area available to financial markets and all other interested agents. there has been an ongoing process of extending the number of statistical series released by the ecb, which i expect to continue in the future. as a latest example, last week we have published for the first time a press release providing a geographical breakdown of balance of payments and international investment position statistics. our concept of transparency transparency serves our main objective of maintaining price stability. as we are a unique institution which has no precedent we have to consider very carefully the appropriate concept of transparency in our decision - making. we are convinced that as a collective body it is beneficial for the governing council to give its collegial assessment in the form of a comprehensive and detailed statement rather than only stating the decision and letting the interested parties wait for the detailed statement to be published later in the form of minutes. our method of real - time communication on behalf of the governing council also goes to demonstrate that we are collectively accountable to the public. each of us inside the 18 - member governing council has to take into account the superior interests of the whole euro area. my colleagues and i are convinced that our