##b was among the institutions that took such measures : preserving price stability was particularly challenging in an economic and monetary union that was still incomplete. we were facing doubts about the integrity of the single currency, not to mention a unique institutional environment that lacked crisis management capacities. we increased our accountability and transparency in line with the essential role we played in managing the crisis. and this was not only driven by external demands. it was in our own interest to provide the public and the markets with a comprehensive analysis of the economic situation and monetary policy decisions. for instance, we decided to publish the accounts of the governing council ’ s monetary policy meetings. of course, this higher level of transparency had to be counterbalanced by the need to maintain the frank and dynamic exchanges which make for efficient collegial decision - making. the accounts offer a fair and balanced reflection of policy deliberations by governing council members. they aim to provide clear and accurate information that elucidates the message, rather than overloads it with detail. however, there is a caveat : the growing importance of forward guidance has increased the risk of self - censorship in the official discussions. since the start of the crisis we have substantially increased our interaction with the european parliament, our key counterpart in terms of accountability. in addition to the regular hearings, the ecb now participates in exchanges of views. the number of meps ’ written questions to the ecb has also considerably increased ; the average number of replies to the parliament per year has risen tenfold compared with the pre - crisis period. this is partly a reflection of the fact that we now have a broader role, albeit mostly in relation to financial assistance programmes and banking supervision. alongside this increased accountability, the cjeu has become more involved in judicial review of our actions in recent years. on the one hand, the court has exercised its powers in relation to a wide range of central bank decisions and policies. recent cases have seen it review not only monetary policy and supervisory decisions, but also technical advice provided within the 2 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches framework of the troika and central banking policies, even where they do not involve the exercise of our decision - making powers. on the other hand, the court ’ s decisions have far - reaching implications, as recent rulings have confirmed that individuals can also challenge our conduct by seeking damages, in addition to asking the court to annul our decisions for reasons of illegality. we need to ensure that all our actions

that are holding real rates and inflation expectations down. addressing structural and institutional challenges monetary easing alone cannot achieve this. certainly, our policy creates the pre - conditions for rates to rise back towards more normal levels. when expected real rates are below expectations of economic growth – as we see at present – there should be incentives for entrepreneurs to capitalise on this differential to invest in new projects, increasing the demand for funds. incomes also rise faster than debts, supporting a faster deleveraging and reducing the supply of funds. but monetary policy is only a necessary condition for “ normalisation ” ; it is not a sufficient one. bis central bankers ’ speeches if monetary policy is to have its full effects on the economic cycle, it needs to be supported by policies that help dislodge negative sentiment about the euro area ’ s prospects and induce higher investment. it is surprising, for example, that businesses currently perceive themselves to have limited excess capacity, despite a large estimated output gap. expectations of long - term prospects are also depressed. if such pessimism were to persist, we would risk that low investment and high unemployment enter a feedback loop, increasing the likelihood of the economy settling into a form of “ underemployment equilibrium ”. cyclical drags would then become structural. in my view addressing this situation has three parts. the first is boosting the euro area ’ s long - term growth prospects, which given our demographics comes down chiefly to raising tfp. the determinants of tfp growth are complex, but broadly speaking it is a function of within - firm and across - firm efficiency. the former relates to how well firms innovate and adopt new technology, while the latter relates to how well capital and labour reallocate to the most productive firms. structural reforms are decisive in both cases. oecd research finds that structural factors produce considerable differences in productivity diffusion from frontier firms 8 as well in the responsiveness of labour and capital to innovative activity. 9 the second part is accelerating the process of private sector debt workout within the euro area. raising productivity growth would certainly support this, insofar as higher long - term growth increases future debt service capacity. but reductions in numerator of the debt ratio – nominal debt – must also be part of the equation. the provisioning for non - performing loans as part of the comprehensive assessment takes us halfway towards a solution. what is now key is that written - down loans can be quickly restructured through more efficient insol