that are necessary to bring inflation to 2 %. if you print enough money, you will always get inflation. always. but if oil and commodities prices tumble, it is more difficult to allow inflation to rise. if a whole series of such factors occur, you can ’ t do anything other than somewhat postpone the date on which you seek to reach the higher rate of inflation. do you think that the ecb ’ s policy is working for all euro area countries, both for spain and portugal, for example, as well as germany? aren ’ t the financial economic differences in europe too large for the ecb ’ s “ one - size - fits - all ” policy? one size doesn ’ t necessarily fit all. it remains extremely difficult for the ecb to follow a strategy that is optimal for all european countries. but you have to look at where we came from. prior to the introduction of the euro, the internal market came under pressure from exchange rate crises : national currencies sometimes fluctuated sharply in value. after the launch of the euro, the euro area enjoyed a number of calm years but, unfortunately, the member countries did not make use of this time to carry out the necessary reforms at national and european level nor, in particular, to put efficient crisis management arrangements in place. and the countries that experienced serious difficulties three or four years ago, such as ireland, portugal, spain and italy, are nonetheless beginning to recover, thanks in part to ecb policy. we also see that germany, the strongest economy in europe, is not experiencing any major disadvantage from that same ecb policy. admittedly, it ’ s a continuous search for a policy that is as favourable as possible for everyone. what does one do with greece, say, which has fundamental problems with its competitiveness? the greek crisis would not have become so large if the european institutions had not been so weak and if more decisive action had been taken, with better crisis management. are you surrounded by enough people who dare to contradict you? do you speak to people who dare to question ecb policy? oh yes, definitely. i listen to people who say that the ecb should take a different approach. i respect those opinions. we ourselves naturally reflect on whether our policy is correct. for example, we explore what the consequences would be if we were to raise interest rates rather than lower them. but our analyses convince us that we are following the correct strategy. besides, that strategy has not been determined

the rules we already have today is paramount before we engage in major new integration steps. to cut a long story short : a fiscal union, which would require member states to surrender substantial national sovereignty, hardly seems feasible at the moment. and as long as there ’ s no willingness to transfer national sovereignty to the european level, there will be no basis for mutualising sovereign risks – and that ’ s why the proposal to establish a european deposit insurance scheme ( edis ) isn ’ t the right institutional response to restore the balance between liability and control in the euro area. as long as actions taken at the national level, such as drafting insolvency law or very high stocks of government bonds on banks ’ balance sheets, can have a substantial impact on the health of financial institutions, edis would allow risks to be shifted to the european level. this would send the wrong incentives to banks and investors alike. the mutualisation of risk would not go hand in hand with the necessary mutualisation of control rights – irrespective of the single supervisory mechanism that was put in place. the second way of restoring the balance between liability and control, meanwhile, would be to strengthen the maastricht approach based on individual responsibility. this would leave economic and fiscal policy, as well as ultimate liability for public debt, in the hands of the individual member states. but how could such a decentralised approach work better in future than it has done in the past? one of the problems in the run - up to the crisis was that the fiscal rules were incapable of effectively limiting the increase in public debt. although the rules were changed after the crisis, the european commission was granted more flexibility in interpreting them. and it has used this flexibility quite a few times so far – and always to interpret the rules very loosely. as a result, the binding force of the budgetary rules is weaker than ever before, as we can see, for instance, in the budgetary developments in france, spain and portugal. one way of ensuring that the rules are binding would be to install a new and independent authority, a fiscal council. this institution would not be exposed to the same political conflicts of interest as the commission, which has to assess whether national budgets comply with the stability and growth pact and hammer out political compromises between the interests of the different member states. " debt is a two - edged sword. used wisely and in moderation, it clearly improves welfare. but, when it is used imprudently