have been granted a high degree of independence. under article 101 ( 1 ) of the treaty, central banks are also prohibited from extending credit to, or purchasing public debt instruments directly from, the primary market. by preserving the financial independence of the ecb and the eurosystem and the integrity of their balance sheet, this prohibition makes monetary policy more credible. in the same vein, the prohibition also helps to strengthen fiscal discipline and thereby to promote the smooth functioning of monetary union. the stability and growth pact ( sgp ) is an additional measure to ensure fiscal discipline and the long - term sustainability of public finances. to conclude, the ecb is committed to its primary objective of maintaining price stability, which has been defined as a rate of increase of the general price level of less than 2 % but close to 2 % over the medium term. this requires a constant monitoring of all inflationary risks, both upward and downward, on the basis of a series of indicators and analytical instruments. ultimately, the firm anchoring of inflation expectations remains the best way to check the appropriateness of monetary policy in an uncertain environment. thank you very much for your attention.

the launch. as with sepa, it was difficult to predict how the customer would react. on the other hand, well before the euro changeover took place, the central banking community discussed customer readiness in depth with the aim to ensure acceptance of the euro notes and coins. well in advance of 2002, the eurosystem started organising a “ partnership programme ” that involved the main bodies in the various sectors. this partnership programme emerged from the “ megaphone idea ” and the understanding that communication on the changeover to the euro had to be at national level by the national public authorities, banking communities and end - user associations. each sector was encouraged to inform their target groups. indeed, as if with a “ megaphone ”, the eurosystem passed on a common set of key messages to target groups, and they in turn passed on the information to others. applying the principle of subsidiarity in this context proved itself as the correct way to deal with differences in culture, language and institutional setting. another characteristic of the changeover was related to the timetable. all countries set an end date for the euro changeover, the dates were not harmonised. in some participating member states the official changeover period was kept very short ; in others it covered a maximum period of two months. despite the absence of a harmonised timetable, the euro changeover in 2002 was a major success, and the whole changeover process was almost completed after only two weeks. 1 this clearly shows that the clarity of the information on the end date given in the information campaigns had been key, and customers in fact did not want to wait until that final date to begin using the euro. the experiences of the euro changeover are very relevant for the sepa project, which is comparable in size, complexity and political relevance. i see, in particular, two main lessons to be learned from the changeover. first, more communication on sepa is needed. i am not implying that the industry should carry out a similar launch campaign, but the industry should step up its efforts to foster customer readiness. to be as successful as the euro changeover, the sepa project must build up a closer “ partnership ” with stakeholders. after two weeks, over 90 % of all cash transactions were being made in euro. some national communities have already closely involved the end - users, and have published reports on the developments of the different stakeholders. in germany, for example, i have noticed that some of the larger banks have begun