economic growth would have been considerably slower, inflation would have been lower and unemployment higher. the one - sided, negative presentation of the consequences of the ecb ’ s policies is misleading. all in all, germany has benefited from the ecb ’ s monetary policy. you are saying that savers are not being expropriated at all. but the ecb ’ s negative interest rate policy effectively means that we can forget about traditional forms of investment such as savings accounts or life insurance policies. at the same time, people are being advised to provide for their retirement. how are they supposed to do that? if the ecb were to increase interest rates in the current environment, it would be harmful for everyone – not least for savers. i can ’ t give people any investment tips. but there ’ s no doubt that, in today ’ s interest rate environment, it is not especially advisable to put all your funds in savings or time deposit accounts. politicians also have a duty to inform citizens about the alternatives to 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches interest rate products. what do you think of german finance minister olaf scholz ’ plans to introduce a tax on share transactions? this measure is mainly politically motivated. from a economic point of view, i see it rather critically. however, the plan is on such a small scale that it will not really change the financial world. another major criticism is that the ecb ’ s policy has created a situation in which weak firms are being kept alive like zombies thanks to low interest rates. do you feel that you are unjustly coming under attack on this point too? the share of unprofitable firms has actually declined over the past few years. that runs counter to the theory of “ zombification ”. all the same, concerns about this issue highlight the need to aspire to sound regulation of the banking sector. weak banks are more likely to extend loans to weak firms. thanks to pressure from ecb banking supervision, the share of non - performing loans on banks ’ balance sheets has fallen sharply. that is an important step in the right direction. you have spoken in favour of tighter regulations governing sovereign bonds held on banks ’ balance sheets. the initiative appears to have foundered on italy. the fact that banks hold sovereign bonds is not the problem, it ’ s rather the concentration of their domestic sovereign bonds. italian banks primarily hold italian government bonds, german banks hold german bonds. one lesson from the euro debt crisis

and exploited to the extent feasible ". furthermore the council task force of which erkki is a member has been mandated by the governing council " to prepare proposals for discussion and decision on issues related to the role, objectives, functions and operational modalities of the eurosystem ". in my view, it has a crucial role to play as an independent think thank. having said that i believe that if the time is not ripe for a top - down decision, there should be room for ncbs – and in particular for medium - sized ncbs – to initiate voluntary collaboration in the development of joint projects and the exploitation of synergies following a bottom up approach. i think also that the long term vision for the eurosystem calls for a shift from the pure centralisation and decentralisation models that have been applied in the past towards models of pooling and consolidation. in my view, the cash ssp partnership fits perfectly into this framework. the introduction of euro banknotes provided an excellent opportunity for the nbb to modernise and reengineer its it - application for cash handling. the goal was twofold : first of all, to manage cash flows more efficiently, both within the central bank and between the central bank and its main customers, financial institutions and cash transport firms ; and secondly, to improve the security of these cash transactions. the successful implementation of this new cash application inspired the bank's cash department to start thinking about the possibility of promoting it to international scale, starting with the neighbouring central banks. so in 2006 cash ssp was formally born and the first agreements were signed between the dutch central bank, the banque centrale du luxembourg and the nbb. today the partnership is extended to a fourth partner, which shows that the scope of the business case is larger. also on behalf of the dutch central bank and the banque centrale du luxembourg let me warmly welcome you as a full and equal partner in the group. we find it very important that standards are being developed, because this shows to the commercial banks active in several countries, that we exploit a number of synergies of the single currency for cash handling and maybe, dear friends, could you use your privileged relationship with the baltic countries to see whether other central banks would be interested in such type of collaboration. from our side, we will continue at the nbb to try to play a pro - active role in promoting collaboration between central banks within the eurosystem also in other fields like collateral