to privatise assets. the more assets that athens privatises, the narrower the gap will be. greece will have to return to the capital markets in 2014, because government bonds will mature. will it manage to do so? and if not : how will the ecb, which holds a large part of these bonds, react? according to the greek minister of finance ioannis stournaras, greece will try to return to the capital markets in the second half of the year. that is the right thing to do, and it remains to be seen if it will succeed. in any case, we as the ecb assume that the bonds we purchased under the securities markets programme ( smp ) will be fully repaid. one option would be for the ecb to transfer the bonds to the european stability mechanism ( esm ), which would be more flexible, in respect of, say, maturity extensions. that idea crops up repeatedly, but i don ’ t think it would be at all feasible politically. we will hold the bonds until maturity under the smp programme. and when will a decision be made on “ greece iii ”? will there also be a haircut? bis central bankers ’ speeches if the country does not succeed in gaining full access to the markets for 2015, the question of a supplementary programme will arise in the course of 2014. but the main concern now is the implementation of the ongoing programme – not what happens after that. another urgent topic is ireland. the rescue programme finishes at the end of this year. if there is to be more help, a decision would need to be taken soon. but it ’ s also possible that the irish will find their own solution. the minister for finance michael noonan has, however, announced that ireland is seeking a precautionary credit line from the esm to the amount of eur 10 billion in order to safeguard its return to the capital markets. would that suffice as a prerequisite for the ecb to purchase irish government bonds under its outright monetary transactions ( omt ) programme in order to support prices if necessary. noonan has indeed expressed his hope that the credit line would not be linked to new conditions. i have of course read what he said. he knows that a precautionary esm programme also involves conditionality. but that is limited to a country ’ s adherence to the stability pact and other eu regulations. there are no new conditions requiring reforms. is that sufficient

systemic risks are identified, policy actions are taken in a timely and effective way, taking into consideration in particular that risks are evolving over time and across institutions and markets. furthermore, i expect an interesting discussion on the macro - prudential aspects of the new capital and liquidity framework ( basel iii ). this topic is of paramount importance from a policy perspective, given the on - going implementation process of basel iii around the globe. in europe, the capital requirements directive iv and related regulation are expected to substantially reshape the macro - prudential policy framework, and i hope in this regard that our panellists will help us better understand the policy implications of this new framework and to find answers to the question how we can strike the right balance between policy measures taken at the national and at the european level. conclusion with these words, i open this conference on “ financial stability : methodological advances and policy issues ”, and look forward to the keynote addresses, presentations, and the discussions that, i am sure, will help us in carrying out our task of contributing to ensure financial stability. bis central bankers ’ speeches