for example, in unsecured markets, we could see that euro area banks were taking fewer counterparty risks with banks from other euro area countries. but our vision was limited. first, we didn ’ t collect direct information on market rates, so we didn ’ t know how much each market participant was paying for liquidity. if we had had a full picture of the dispersion of rates, we would have had less need to read between the lines. second, we only published the emms annually, which seriously limited the potential for research and analysis. research on a crisis that was developing by the hour could not be based on data published once a year. but we understood the shortcomings of the data and got to work. in 2016, we started to collect money market statistical reporting, or mmsr, data. the mmsr data include trade - by - trade granular data on four market segments. this means we receive full information on each trade – the maturity date, the rate, the counterparty, the collateral and more. data on the unsecured market segment are published every six to eight weeks. with this project the ecb took an important step towards the future, becoming a collector of “ big data ”. but, of course, we didn ’ t do this on our own. a tale of cooperation cooperation is often mentioned at conferences like this one. but in the field of statistics, it is simply a reality that you won ’ t get very far if you don ’ t cooperate with others. projects such as the mmsr would never have come into being without good cooperation. in fact, the genesis of the mmsr involved the central banks of four countries – germany, france, italy and spain – and the ecb. and of course, these institutions needed to cooperate with reporting banks. and cooperation happens not only between institutions, but also within institutions : the constant feedback loop between departments using the data and those preparing them leads to highquality results. but smooth cooperation has helped us from the start. it allowed the eurosystem to achieve its objectives from day one, 20 years ago. thanks to a joint effort by the entire eurosystem, we had a set of harmonised euro area statistics from the very beginning of the ecb ’ s existence. and some 16 years later, when european banking supervision came into being, the directorate general statistics was able to provide the supervisory data we needed right from the start – thanks to another joint effort.

willem f duisenberg : the path towards a single currency reply by dr willem f duisenberg, president of the european central bank, on the occasion of receiving the grand cross 1st class of the order of merit of the federal republic of germany, frankfurt am main, 24 july 2002 * * * first, i should like to sincerely thank the president of the federal republic of germany, represented here today by the finance minister, mr. eichel, for awarding me the grand cross 1st class of the order of merit of the federal republic of germany. i feel deeply honoured. i would also like to thank the finance minister for his kind words. and i am grateful to all of you here for sharing this special moment with me. to be mentioned in the same distinguished company as karl otto pohl, helmut schlesinger and hans tietmeyer is a great honour for a former president of the dutch central bank. in the early 1970s, de nederlandsche bank and, in particular, my predecessor there, jelle zijlstra, realised that the netherlands, as a relatively small and open economy, had no other option than to orient its monetary policy towards its main trading partner and neighbour, germany. moreover, by doing so, we thought we could ‘ import ’ the credibility of german monetary policy and transfer the internal stability of the deutsche mark to the dutch guilder. this policy was contentious and de nederlandsche bank rather cautiously adopted an exchange rate target policy. indeed, in my early years as president of the dutch central bank, i was confronted - in 1983 - with the decision of the dutch government not to revalue the dutch guilder in the european exchange rate mechanism to the same extent as the german currency ; a decision taken against the explicit advice of the dutch central bank. this decision resulted in a divergence between dutch and german interest rates, which, unfortunately, came to haunt the netherlands for almost eight years. the most important lesson of this event - for me and also for the government - was that to gain credibility in financial markets was very difficult, but to lose credibility was very easy. after 1983, the exchange rate of the guilder was more or less pegged to the exchange rate of the deutsche mark. and as was expected in the 1970s, price developments in the netherlands very much mirrored those in germany. the success of dutch monetary policy became very obvious during the upheaval in the european monetary system in july 1993, when it was decided to widen