can only say how important this step would be. growth in the us is slowing down. what needs to be done to achieve a soft landing instead of a hard landing? we follow very carefully the situation. our scenario is the scenario of the federal reserve system, a soft slowing down, which is presently observed. how harmful is the current dollar - euro ratio? do you see the value of the dollar on the rise again in the next few months? on the euro - dollar relation i would confirm to you what i have already said : i signed myself, together with the other members of the g7, a communique in singapore which said in particular : „ excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates are undesirable for economic growth. “ i also noted the declarations of secretary paulson that “ a strong dollar is clearly in the interest of the united states. ” how high will you allow the euro to go? i will not say anything more. these sentences speak by themselves. how is your relationship with m. jean - claude juncker, the president of the eurogroup? it ’ s good. the responsibility of jean - claude juncker as president of the eurogroup is extremely important. he has within the eurogroup a huge domain with all ministers of finance where appropriate discussion and cooperation in particular in the fiscal policy and the structural policies are fundamental. he is an excellent president of the eurogroup. europe has progressed as a political union not in a parallel way with monetary union. we are not a full fledged federation. it is also clear that the constitutional treaty – which would be an important improvement in the functioning of the present european institutions – has not been approved, even if now, after the ratification by finland, 16 countries have ratified the constitution. that being said, we do have a combination of monetary union and economic union – emu – which i strongly trust is viable and credible – including the stability and growth pact and the will of governments to discuss and cooperate as regards fiscal and structural policies. as a citizen i would call for going forward in achieving political union. as president of the ecb i repeat that i consider emu highly credible with its stability and growth pact. there is a lot of controversy about who should be able to join the eu. do you see the same kind of controversy about who should be able to join the euro zone? these are two completely different issues. the entry in the european union is an important decision. once you are

that further integration is necessary. if we didn ’ t agree on this need and we neglected the high degree of interdependence between member states, we would run the risk of going backwards – and that would probably be in a brutal way. in this sense, the sovereign debt crisis acted as a wake - up call and led to substantial steps forward in european integration, including the creation of the european stability mechanism and the single supervisory mechanism. the ecb is a federal institution where competences, such as competition and trade policies, are european, as you said. does that mean that the euro can only survive in a federal setting, a federal union? to put it very simply : in the long run europeans will decide as much as possible in local communities and countries, and will decide jointly at a european level whenever necessary. that is the principle of subsidiarity. which decision - making belongs to which level is up for debate. the euro is the currency of the european union. to reap the full benefit of monetary union, it is essential to put in place a sound institutional framework for other policies, where responsibilities are assigned to the right level. some policies, but certainly not all, are best assigned to the union level. this is a long process, and the union has already demonstrated its ability to make 1 / 5 bis central bankers'speeches progress. there was a high degree of consensus after the financial crisis that banks would be best supervised at the union level. the responsibility for banking supervision was accordingly assigned to the union level, following a decision taken by the european council in june 2012. in some policy areas, rules are not sufficient, you also need institutions. crisis management is another example. the rules that we had before the crisis didn ’ t even foresee the possibility of a crisis, and this made the response to the euro area sovereign debt crisis particularly challenging. lessons were learnt from this painful experience and a permanent institution for crisis management was established, the european stability mechanism. assigning monetary policy to the union level was relatively easy, because there is a broad social consensus on central banking whereby the central bank should be independent and be assigned the pursuit of a single objective, price stability. defining the right allocation of responsibilities between the union and its member states is by nature a long historical process ; it will continue to elicit lively political debates in europe. such debates are to be welcomed, as they are part of our writing a common history. is the ecb ’ s mandate