ecb, in cooperation with the us federal reserve system and other central banks, has been conducting term auction facilities – so - called taf operations – in which it provides usd liquidity on behalf of the us fed to euro area banks against ecb eligible collateral. these operations do not have a direct impact on euro liquidity conditions and are aimed at improving global funding conditions. in this respect i would like to stress that to my knowledge this was the first joint action of that kind ever taken by central banks to relieve pressures in the short term funding markets. the world can count on a continuation of this fruitful cooperation among central banks and it can also count on the fact that this cooperation occurs fully in line with our respective mandates and, in exceptional times like these, can even strengthen their achievement. i thank you for your attention.

jean - claude trichet : international interdependencies and monetary policy – a policy maker ’ s view speech by mr jean - claude trichet, president of the european central bank, at the fifth ecb central banking conference “ the euro at ten : lessons and challenges ”, frankfurt am main, 14 november 2008. * * * ladies and gentlemen, i would like to express my gratitude for having the opportunity to host this panel of distinguished experts and colleagues. dear ben, dear stanley, dear ning, and dear guillermo : i greatly appreciate your willingness to participate in this conference despite the tremendous challenges we are all currently faced with. i would also like to use this opportunity to thank the conference organisers for a superb job and indeed all conference participants for their important contributions. it is perhaps unfortunate that the current crisis distracts our minds from the subject of the conference : the euro coming of age. in different conditions, i would have argued – as i did in the past – that, far from suppressing growth and entrenching divergences, the euro has spurred a spectacular drive of job creation virtually everywhere in the union. by helping and fostering a long - due redressing of economic priorities and processes, the euro has enabled many countries participating in monetary union to do their best to compete successfully. we see signs that this restructuring is spreading to other parts of the union that have been less successful so far in taking up the challenge. under normal circumstances, european monetary union – international integration in its most intimate form – would have been the subject of these remarks. with the current crisis in the background, however, i want to address a different form of convergence and cooperation in the international arena, which involves central banks and crisis management. of course, this brings me quite far. with ever stronger global integration of goods and services trade and, in particular, financial markets there are increasingly stronger linkages among the world regions. as a result, economic and financial crises in one world region increasingly spill over to other regions. at the same time, corrective policy action in one region creates conditions and economic incentives that are felt and are acted upon elsewhere. how should policymakers around the world deal with this fact? in particular, is there a case for international coordination of macroeconomic policies? i will try to give a tentative answer to these important questions. i will argue that we need to be careful with what we understand by international policy coordination. policy coordination does not mean, of course,