so certainly the new part of this job is the inner machinery of the ecb. but the monetary policy decisions and the related decisions were part of my knowledge even before, because we shared decisions that were taken in the past. wsj : your first months saw a lot of activity. is there much more the ecb can do when it comes to financial stability and economic growth? has it done about as much as it can? draghi : what i am going to say doesn ’ t imply anything as far as future monetary policy decisions are concerned. within its primary mandate the ecb will do its utmost to ensure price stability in the medium term and within the remit of the treaty to foster financial stability. wsj : what ’ s the first statistic you look at in the morning? draghi : stock markets. wsj : do you look at the euro exchange rate? draghi : not in the early morning. bis central bankers ’ speeches

has been closely involved in the european construction and european unity. he has been an outstanding ecb chief economist. he is one of the greatest champions of the european union that i know. when, after serving the euro for many years, such a person, who has been totally loyal to the institution, announces his resignation for personal reasons, one has to fully respect his decision. according to opinion polls, a majority of germans now want the deutsche mark back. is the euro at risk of losing its backing in europe ’ s largest economy? there are different opinion polls! in early september die welt published the results of a survey in which two thirds of respondents in germany called for “ more common policies in europe ”. the citizens of germany know how important european unification is for their country ; the fall of the iron curtain would not have been possible without a united western europe. bis central bankers ’ speeches in that case, how do you explain the growing mistrust? i believe there is a problem of communication. contrary to how things are often portrayed, we do not have a crisis of the euro as a currency. the euro is a credible, stable currency. in spite of the global crisis, its external value today is significantly higher than when it began. for 13 years the ecb has provided for stable prices. and observers and markets are anticipating the same stable prices for the next ten years. this achievement in particular is not valued highly enough by some commentators in germany, and i do not understand why that is. of course, there are shortcomings in the financial sector, in fiscal policies, and as regards financial stability : the financial markets are too unstable, some euro area countries are uncompetitive, and reliable fiscal policy is lacking in several countries. however, none of these problems have to do with the currency. they are the responsibility of the governments of the euro area. do you have the impression that the heads of government have understood what is at stake? i believe they are conscious of their extraordinary responsibility. they all have to make decisions in the context of democracies which, in the advanced economies, are very inwardlooking, which is a real problem at the time of the worst global crisis for the last 66 years. what will happen if the european heads of government do not get the crisis under control? my working assumption is that the heads of state and government will overcome the crisis. europe must realign its fiscal policy, as other large developed economies must also do