remarks let me conclude. the global economy shows signs of an ongoing improvement. in the euro area, we are also on the road to recovery, albeit at a moderate pace. uncertainties remain high. as regards our monetary policy stance, we still view the current level of the ecb ’ s key interest rates as appropriate, given continued low inflationary pressures and our current assessment of the risks to price stability over the medium term. at the same time, improvements in financial markets since spring 2009 have justified a gradual phasing - out of non - standard measures. these decisions help to avoid distortions associated with the maintenance of our non - standard measures for longer than they are needed. this does not mean that the crisis is over. there is no room for complacency. we cannot rule out setbacks. new challenges may arise. greece is a case in point. thus, central banks need to provide an anchor of stability and confidence. any attempt to weaken or even lift this anchor would be a step in the wrong direction. thank you for your attention.

, a rise in the expected excess returns implies a lower demand for money. in the course of the last 20 years, the globalisation of financial markets owing to the reduction of transaction costs and the enhancement of information flows has increased the share of global wealth invested outside investors ’ home jurisdictions. the models of tobin and markowitz have become, therefore, much more complicated when extending the analysis to the global environment. portfolio theory suggested that assets should be considered imperfect substitutes for each other, with the differences in their expected yields reflecting their marginal risks regardless of the economy being open or closed. however, the representative agent model is no longer applicable in the case of an open economy, as the presence of international capital flows requires either asymmetric information or heterogeneous belief among various agents. this makes the theoretical and empirical efforts to search for policy solutions a very complicated business. in an open economy setting, for given risks, a rise in expected excess returns does not necessarily imply a lower demand for money. domestic assets may be purchased by foreign investors generating net portfolio inflows, which would raise domestic money growth. it is also true, however, that money and credit growth could trigger international portfolio flows. specifically, two mechanisms can be identified through which liquidity affects international portfolio flows. first, strong money and credit growth in one country may induce capital outflows to foreign asset markets, thereby exerting upward pressure on prices for financial and real assets abroad. second : at the same time, ample liquidity conditions in the domestic economy may fuel strong economic growth and be accompanied by higher asset prices, thereby inducing foreign capital inflows. the current magnitude of the stock of global liquidity and global savings is such that the asset prices and money growth of large economic areas, including the euro area, can be affected by them. in the same vein, large net capital inflows, as well as their sudden reversals, may also have important real consequences for large economies as they can systematically influence domestic monetary developments with potential implications for monetary policy. evidence from the euro area shows that international portfolio flows have played an increasingly important role as a driving force for monetary dynamics. as you are aware, the ecb ’ s monetary policy strategy attributes a prominent role to the analysis of monetary aggregates and their counterparts in the assessment of risks to price stability over the medium to longer term. the growing size of international capital flows associated with globalisation of financial markets has made the analysis of monetary aggregates, for the