few cases where hard rules were supposed to apply. we had assumed that countries had sufficient incentives to “ keep their house in order ” and thereby contribute to the common good of the euro area. an overly narrow interpretation of the principle of subsidiarity also shielded national economic policies from what was seen as undue european interference. the experience of the first twelve years of emu suggests that the limits of de facto soft policy coordination have largely been exhausted, with the interdependencies inside a monetary union calling for a stronger euro area dimension. let me now take a closer look at the two emu pillars separately. the “ m ” of the emu the “ m ” of the emu, or the monetary pillar, has performed well. the ecb has a clear assignment : to deliver price stability, which is defined as an annual inflation rate below but close to 2 % over the medium term. and over the 12 years since the launch of emu, the average annual inflation rate in the euro area has been 1. 97 %. this is the best result of a major central bank in the euro area for any such period of 12 years, over the last 50 years. bis central bankers ’ speeches we achieved this during challenging times. over the years, we have had to cope with the bursting of the dot - com bubble, the aftermath of the events of 11september 2001, the jump in oil prices to $ 147 per barrel in 2008, rising prices of food and commodities, and then of course the worst financial and economic crisis since the great depression. yet throughout these very different economic shocks – which could have had either inflationary or deflationary consequences – citizens and market participants in the euro area have remained confident in our commitment. inflation expectations have been firmly anchored in line with our definition of price stability. the “ e ” of the emu it is the “ e ” of the emu, where progress is needed. already the 1989 delors report stated that “ an economic and monetary union could only operate on the basis of mutually consistent and sound behaviour by governments and other economic agents in all member countries. ( … ) uncoordinated and divergent national budgetary policies would undermine monetary stability and generate imbalances in the real and financial sectors of the community. ” what does this mean in practice? it means improving economic governance. it means strengthening the rules to prevent unsound policies. and it means to prohibit individual countries from pursuing policies that can

own economy, but also on key partner economies. i welcome the development of the principal global indicators ( pgis ) that will be comparable for the g20 economies, including the euro area, and which are similar to the principal european economic indicators for economic and monetary union. the pgi website maintained by the imf 17 is supported by six other international organisations, including the ecb. conclusions let me conclude. evidence - based decision - making in modern economies is unthinkable without statistics. this applies a fortiori to monetary and financial stability policies. the financial crisis has revealed information gaps that we have to close while also preparing ourselves for future challenges. this is best achieved through creating a wide range of economic and financial statistics that are mutually consistent, thereby eliminating contradictory signals due to measurement issues. the main aggregates must be both reliable and timely, and, in a globalised world, they should be comparable across countries and economies. reliability and timeliness are key for statistics, but may seem to be conflicting objectives. this is more the case in the short - term, as the production frontier for compiling statistics can be enhanced in the medium term by a higher degree of automation. the effective and efficient collection, compilation and dissemination of european statistics requires a well developed statistical infrastructure, including, most importantly, a team of skilled and experienced statisticians familiar with european and international cooperation. i take tomorrow ’ s world statistics day as an occasion to remind all of us of the importance of highquality statistics. they are central to the foundations of public and private sector decisionmaking throughout our societies. thank you for your attention. see http : / / financialdatalink. sharepointsite. net / default. aspx.