bundesbank, vigorously opposed it. what ’ s your position? without knowing the future concrete circumstances underlying a decision on the potential activation of the omt, it is difficult to answer this question. overall i am a little bit critical about the incentives structure offered by the omt. i do see some legal questions coming up. but to get the concrete answers on those questions you need concrete circumstances : the economic conditions ; what you buy ; how much you buy, mitigating factors like the conditionality etc. wsj : how important is it that monetary policy decisions are not influenced by the state of the banking system? what is important is that you have to make sure that the decisions in the banking supervisory arm are not influenced by your monetary policy task and vice versa, and that you can do. but you cannot have a chinese wall in your head. as a central banker, you should be very well familiar with what is happening to banks within in the euro area, after all they constitute one of the biggest monetary policy transmission channels. but rest assured we will implement strict rules and practices to ensure separation between both tasks. currently, we are examining best practices of other central banks around the world, which are also tasked with banking supervision. the decision making procedure for supervisory decision is a very special one : the supervisory board of the ssm will draft the decision and the governing council, the ultimate decision making body, adopts it through a non - objection procedure. wsj : does there need to be a response from the european union to the federal reserve ’ s new rules for international banks? we have an agreement between the u. s. and europe that there is a certain kind of reciprocity in accepting the regulatory regime as equal. the next half year should be a period bis central bankers ’ speeches where we ask our colleagues from the fed, how they want to implement the new foreign bank rules. and then we need to talk in the european arena how we want to react in particular when we are talking about reciprocity. wsj : isn ’ t the asset quality review process for euro - zone banks too late? the u. s. addressed problems with its banks several years ago. no, it is not too late. the aqr and the stress test will be tough. they will be credible, stringent and consistent. it ’ s the last chance to clean up. we are a little bit late, but then again, the situation in the u

orders, which have historically been closely associated with industrial production3, remain in negative territory. so we are now seeing a more persistent deterioration of external demand. but a “ soft patch ” does not necessarily foreshadow a serious slump. during the four euro area business cycle expansions since 1970, there have been 50 soft patches – defined as a two - quarter growth slowdown – and only 4 recessions. 4 in fact, the euro area faced an analogous situation in 2016, when the economy also went through a soft patch triggered by a contraction in world trade. at that time, the strength of the domestic economy was able to shield the recovery from external uncertainties. the key question is whether, with monetary policy continuing to support the expansion, domestic 1 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches demand will remain as resilient today. the demand component typically affected most by a weaker global environment is investment. ecb internal analysis shows that the more exposed euro area listed firms are to foreign markets, the more sensitive they are to uncertainty when making their investment decisions. and there are some signs that external demand may be affecting investment via manufacturing value chains within the euro area. in particular, both extra and intra - euro area trade slowed steeply last year, whereas in 2016 intraeuro area trade was robust to the external slowdown. such a recoupling of intra - and extra - euro area trade growth in a downward direction has not occurred since the start of the global financial crisis. intra - euro area exports of intermediate and capital goods were hit particularly hard, with capital goods exports registering their strongest contraction since the sovereign debt crisis. a further rise in global uncertainty could therefore lead to a deceleration in trade and investment. but for now expectations for investment remain relatively robust. though professional forecasters have slightly downgraded their projections for investment growth this year – from around 3 % to around 2. 5 % – the fundamentals are in place for investment to rebound, if global growth stabilises. capacity utilisation stands close to its long - term maximum, financing conditions remain very favourable and corporate leverage5 ( as a percentage of total assets ) has fallen to levels last witnessed in the early years of emu – although gross corporate indebtedness6 ( as a percentage of gross value added ) still stands above its pre - crisis level. the latest surveys also suggest some recovery in business sentiment. while consumption is typically less affected by external developments, its growth rate has slowed over the