our doubts about that. would you really refuse to help a country that does not fulfil the reform requirements? draghi : of course. if a country does not adhere to what has been agreed, we will not resume the programme. we have announced that we will suspend operations once a programme country is under review. we will then ask the international monetary fund and the european commission to assess whether the country is keeping the conditions of the agreement, and only after a positive assessment will we resume operations. spiegel : one only needs to consider the example of greece currently to get an idea of how credible such statements are. the government in athens repeatedly broke their commitments to the troika ( made up of the imf, ecb and european commission ) and yet they are now about to receive the next tranche of financial assistance anyway. draghi : that is not an appropriate comparison. greece will not be considered at all for our programme because it is targeted exclusively at countries that finance themselves, now as before, on the capital market. this is something completely different. spiegel : many people are nevertheless concerned that the ecb wants to take a vast amount of high - risk government bonds from southern europe onto its balance sheet. you already have on your books around €200 billion in securities from countries such as portugal and ireland. will it be the taxpayer who ultimately has to jump in if the countries cannot service their debt? draghi : i do not anticipate this ; quite the opposite. so far we have actually made a profit on our bond purchases, which has gone to the national central banks, in turn profiting the governments and taxpayers. spiegel : can you guarantee it will stay this way? draghi : one thing is clear : if the governments in southern europe continue with the successful implementation of policy reforms seen in the last few months, german taxpayers will make a profit from our purchases. there is no better protection against the euro crisis than successful structural reforms in southern europe. bis central bankers ’ speeches spiegel : this can also be expressed in a different way : your balance sheet is dependent upon political developments in madrid, rome and lisbon. do you think it is wise for a central bank to make itself dependent on governments in this way? draghi : we are not making ourselves dependent, quite the opposite. when the crisis escalated in early summer, the ecb had three options : first, do nothing, allowing the crisis to get worse and worse with greater

european central bank : press conference – introductory statement introductory statement by mr jean - claude trichet, president of the european central bank and mr lucas papademos, vice - president of the european central bank, frankfurt am main, 8 november 2007. * * * ladies and gentlemen, the vice - president and i are very pleased to welcome you to today ’ s press conference. let me report on the outcome of our meeting, which was also attended by commissioner almunia. on the basis of our regular economic and monetary analyses, we decided at today ’ s meeting to leave the key ecb interest rates unchanged. the information that has become available since our previous meeting fully confirms that the outlook for price stability over the medium term is subject to upside risks. against this background, and with money and credit growth vigorous in the euro area, our monetary policy stands ready to counter upside risks to price stability, as required by our mandate. the economic fundamentals of the euro area remain sound and support a favourable medium - term outlook for economic activity. however, the ongoing reappraisal of risk in financial markets has led to continued uncertainty. this warrants a thorough examination of additional information before drawing further conclusions for monetary policy in the context of our medium term - oriented monetary policy strategy focused on maintaining price stability. accordingly, the governing council will monitor very closely all developments. by acting in a firm and timely manner on the basis of our assessment, we will ensure that risks to price stability over the medium term do not materialise and that medium and long - term inflation expectations remain firmly anchored in line with price stability, which is all the more important at times of financial market volatility and increased uncertainty. this will favour an environment conducive to sustained economic growth, well - functioning markets and job creation. as regards the financial markets, we will continue to pay great attention to developments over the period to come. allow me to explain our assessment in greater detail, starting with the economic analysis. on the basis of the available data, it appears that the sustained real economic growth experienced in the euro area in the first half of 2007 has continued through the third quarter, as reflected in the data for industrial production and retail sales that have been released since our meeting in early october. while financial market volatility seems to have contributed to a decline in euro area consumer and business confidence indicators in the past few months, these indicators generally remain above their historical averages and continue to point to ongoing sustained growth. overall