jean - claude trichet : interview with helsingin sanomat and kauppalehti interview with mr jean - claude trichet, president of the european central bank, conducted on 20 april 2011 by mr jorma poysa ( kauppalehti ) and mr juhana rossi ( helsingin sanomat ), published on 26 april 2011. * * * question : as you may know, a populist and euro - hostile party called true finns won the general election in finland last weekend, obtaining almost one - fifth of the votes. are you worried that this anti - euro sentiment will grow in other euro area countries? could it dampen the willingness of triple a countries to accept new rescue arrangements and therefore slow the gradual recovery from the recession and the debt / banking crisis? as a central bank we issue a currency for absolutely all political sensitivities. we are the guardian of a public good – a credible and stable currency – and that public good is for the service of all our fellow citizens. we are, by construction, a multi - partisan and multinational institution. i will not comment on the functioning of our democracies. we fully respect the functioning of our democracies in which we have the fortune to live in europe. question : but what is the atmosphere in europe? do you think there are worrying phenomena? in a democracy all opinions are expressed. i have observed that there was always a very strong european drive in finland, and i am very happy with that. as i said, the euro was created on the basis of a multi - partisan and multinational vision to deepen european construction and to reinforce solidarity between europeans. taking into account the historical challenge, which finland perhaps knows better than other european countries over the last 60 years, it seems to me that all the reasons why the “ founding fathers ” had this vision of european unity are still there and they are even stronger now. when we look at the changes all over the world, the extraordinary growth of the emerging economies, such as india, china, brazil, mexico, russia, and the remarkable development of latin america and africa, we see that european unity is more important than ever. question : the level of the ecb ’ s refinancing rate is still unusually low. also the non - standard measures are in use, and banks have access to ample liquidity. at the same time global price pressures in energy and food are elevated, and headline inflation

substantially in the us. growth in asia is solid, but a global rise in interest rates is unlikely to start there. inflation is higher in the euro area than in the us and approximately in line with the objective defined by the european central bank. in the euro area, however, capacity utilisation is very low, unemployment high and the outlook for growth is weaker. recently, inflation has moderated slightly. against this background, it will probably also take time before interest rates rise markedly in the euro area. interest rates abroad have been unusually low for 2½ years, and it appears they will remain low for a period ahead. this poses a challenge to monetary policy in norway. growth in the norwegian economy has picked up. lower interest rates have contributed to sustaining growth in private consumption. household demand will probably be the most important driving force in the norwegian economy in the period ahead. against the background of high real income growth, improved job security and expectations of continued low interest rates ahead, household consumption is expected to exhibit strong growth. petroleum investment exhibited brisk growth in 2003. growth in petroleum investment would appear to continue in 2004, but probably at a slower rate than in 2003. low interest rates and house price inflation imply higher housing investment in the period ahead. fiscal policy also contributes to stimulating activity. the impact of the interest rate decline on private consumption is likely to be stronger this year than in 2003. it takes time for changes in norges bank ’ s key rate to feed through fully to interest rates for households. norges bank ’ s calculations show that if we look at 2003 and 2004 as a whole, it appears that the impact of interest rate changes will result in an overall reduction of about nok 15bn in household net interest expenses before tax. however, due to the increase in household net debt, net interest expenses will fall much less than this. the impact of the interest rate decline is also conditioned by the expected duration of the low interest rate level. when the sight deposit rate was reduced last autumn, longer interest rates showed relatively little change. the interest rate reductions in december and january, combined with the decline in inflation, have had a stronger impact on long - term interest rates. this indicates that financial market participants expect interest rates to remain low for a longer period. the fall in the value of the krone over the past year has strengthened norwegian business and industry. with lower wage growth in norway and a pick - up global activity, the prospects for norwegian manufacturing and the business sector are