willem f duisenberg : the ecb ’ s assessment of current economic and monetary developments and prospects for the euro area introductory statement delivered by dr willem f duisenberg, president of the european central bank, at the testimony before the committee on economic and monetary affairs of the european parliament, brussels, on 28 may 2001. * * * it is a pleasure for me again to appear before your committee to report to you on recent decisions by the governing council in the area of monetary policy as well as within its other fields of competence. i shall start with the ecb's assessment of current economic and monetary developments, as well as the prospects for the euro area, and explain our recent monetary policy decisions. i shall then turn to the preparations for the introduction of the euro banknotes and coins. finally, i should like to address the role of central banks in the field of banking supervision. i should like to indicate already at this stage that my opening remarks may slightly exceed the usual time frame. 1. economic and monetary developments since my last appearance before this committee on 5 march 2001, the governing council of the ecb decided to reduce its key interest rates by 25 basis points on 10 may. i would like to explain the reasons for the decision. over the last few months, the governing council has gradually changed its view on the balance of risks to price stability in the euro area, moving from a situation where the risks basically remained on the upside towards a far more balanced situation. starting with the first pillar, we have been witnessing a downward trend in the dynamics of both money and credit growth in the second half of 2000 and early 2001, partly reflecting the increase of 225 basis points in key ecb interest rates, which occurred between november 1999 and october 2000. the three - month average of the annual growth rates of m3 was 4. 8 % in the period from january to march 2001. in addition, some slowdown in credit aggregates had also been visible over the past few months, and m1 continued to grow at a very low pace. moreover, there is now evidence that the monetary growth figures are distorted upwards by non - euro area residents'purchases of negotiable paper included in m3. the vice - president of the ecb already informed this committee on 2 may, in his presentation of the ecb's annual report, that the ecb was working on identifying these distortions precisely and on making the necessary corrections to the data. some of these distortions have recently been

vitor constancio : how fit are statistics for use in macro - prudential oversight? speech by mr vitor constancio, vice - president of the european central bank, at the sixth ecb statistics conference, frankfurt am main, 17 april 2012. * 1. * * introduction macro - prudential analysis and oversight are not new tasks for central banks. in broad terms, the objective of macro - prudential analysis and oversight is to identify and prevent systemic risk, so as to minimise the costs that financial instability can impose on the real economy. pursuing this objective calls for the definition of qualitative and quantitative intermediate goals, which can pose considerable analytical and informational challenges. over the past few years, the financial crisis has clearly illustrated just how devastating the materialisation of systemic risk can be for the financial sector and the broader economy. in particular, the financial crisis has demonstrated the need for a coherent and well - articulated macro - prudential policy framework at the national, european and global level. in this respect, it exposed deficiencies in the information base on which macro - prudential oversight was being conducted. it is on this latter topic that i will focus my presentation today. in assessing the question as to how fit statistics are for use in macro - prudential oversight, i will outline the data needed for macro - prudential analysis, touching upon the ecb ’ s responsibilities in the field of macro - prudential oversight. i will then move on to reflect on what has been achieved so far, paying particular attention to the macro and microdimensions of data requirements. finally, i will highlight what is missing and mention a number of important ongoing initiatives that could help to overcoming the key challenges in terms data that we still need to deal with. 2. the macro - prudential oversight function and the role of the ecb let me start by reflecting on the macro - prudential oversight function. there are three main components in the macro - prudential oversight process. the first concerns the surveillance needed to identify plausible and ( systemically ) important sources of risks and vulnerabilities on the basis of an analysis of the individual and collective strength and robustness of the constituent parts of the financial system – institutions, markets and infrastructures. the second involves the assessment of the potential costs and the ability of the financial system to cope with these costs should some combination of the identified risks and vulnerabilities materialise.