##asuries. some believe that preventing contagion from greece also requires a clear statement from governments that bond holders of other countries will not suffer haircuts or debt write - downs? the heads of state or government have said very clearly that greece is a special case and that, as i just quoted, as regards all other countries they reaffirm their inflexible determination to honour fully their own individual sovereign signature. i would say it was important to avoid any ambiguity in this respect. can you explain how you would leverage the efsf? there are various means to do that and i don ’ t want to embark into technicalities because it ’ s really the responsibility of the treasuries. but there are several ways to leverage the efsf. bis central bankers ’ speeches do you think the ecb ’ s role in providing unlimited liquidity prevented an intensification of the global financial crisis and a depression in europe? i think the governing council of the ecb has demonstrated a capacity to be lucid in diagnosing the gravity of the situation since the start of the crisis in august 2007. so i would certainly echo what you say. we have had two categories of monetary policy measures in this crisis. one has been the decisions on interest rates – what i would call the standard measures – which are designed to deliver price stability over the medium term and be sure that inflation expectations are solidly anchored. on the other hand, in periods of abnormal tensions in financial markets, we have helped restored a better transmission of our monetary policy – of our interest rates – by other, nonstandard measures. the most important of our non - standard measures is full allotment at fixed rates, which we used as early as august 2007 and which is now a generalised concept. other non - standard measures have included intervention in the covered bond market and in treasuries. after almost 13 years of the euro we have delivered for 332 million fellow citizens 2. 0 per cent average annual inflation. this is better than over the past 50 years for the main euro area countries, and we can see from information we extract from financial markets that we are credible to deliver price stability for the next 10 years, in line with our definition. so this is a level of credibility, after four years of crisis, which demonstrates the effectiveness of our so - called separation principle between the standard measures and the non - standard measures. as it is obvious, the euro as a currency is

##ilient – which was plain wrong. i must say, i never shared the view that we were in a world where there was no risk. that being said, when the first diagnosis was made at a global level with china, india, brazil, russia around the table, as well as of course japan, the us and the europeans, we didn ’ t challenge the fact that a market economy was the best recipe for producing growth. bis central bankers ’ speeches in germany there ’ s a very strong belief in the market, which is why german conservatives opposed crisis measures taken by the ecb. we ’ ve had two resignations by germans – axel weber and jurgen stark – from the governing council. if you ’ re talking about further steps towards european integration, are you in danger of losing the germans? first of all, i don ’ t know what “ the germans ” means, i don ’ t know what “ the english ” means, i don ’ t know what “ the french ” means. we are living in cultures that are very deep, very profound and very complex, obviously, and where fortunately you have a lot of different opinions. we have a legitimate debate – in europe as well as in the us and in japan – about whether the central bank is doing well on this, well on that. the governing council of the ecb did all what was necessary to be faithful to its primary mandate and to take into account, in transmitting our decisions on interest rates, that we were in the worst crisis since 66 years, a crisis which was disrupting some markets. jurgen stark has been a very close friend for 18 years. he has worked for europe for the past 18 years. i have great esteem for jurgen and all that he has done and is doing. if you look back on all the years that you ’ ve been involved in european construction, is this the most serious crisis that you ’ ve had to deal with? i was involved in many crises : the real economy crisis after the first oil shock, the sovereign risk crises of the 1980s, the crisis of the exchange rate mechanism in 1992 and 1993, the asian crisis in particular. but what we are experiencing presently is bigger and has hit directly in at the heart of the advanced economies. so it is undoubtedly an historical event of the first magnitude, the worst financial crisis since the second world war. it could have produced a great depression had appropriate decisions not been taken at the appropriate. this is also the moment of maximum peril