lorenzo bini smaghi : developments and prospects for the european economy in 2009 speech by mr lorenzo bini smaghi, member of the executive board of the european central bank, at the conference “ altagamma : scenari 2009 ”, milan, 30 march 2009. * * * i would like first of all to thank the president of altagamma, leonardo ferragamo, for the invitation to participate to this conference. the issue i was asked to address – “ developments and prospects for the european economy in 2009 ” – is certainly not an easy one. never has it been so hard to make a forecast, not only about the future but also about the present and even the recent past ( although it might sound paradoxical ). the forecasts of major international organisations are being systematically revised downwards, not only with respect to the next few months, but mainly due to what happened over the past months, which turns out to be much worse than expected. the last ecb forecast, from early march, was worse than the one published a few weeks earlier by the european commission mainly because it was able to include preliminary data for the last quarter of 2008, showing a gdp fall of 1. 5 %. in the last few days other forecasts have come out, based on more recent data, which are even more pessimistic. the difficulty in making forecasts in these circumstances derives from the fact that available economic models are not calibrated to take into account shocks of a size similar to the one we are experiencing, nor are they capable of understanding the nature and mechanisms of the transmission process. rather than elaborating a new scenario, which risks becoming obsolete quite rapidly, i would like to share with you some reflections on the current crisis and on possible developments. in this respect, i would like to remind that, given that the governing council will meet on this coming thursday, we are in the so - called purdah period in which we abstain from making comments on monetary policy. what i will say should thus in no way be associated to possible monetary policy decisions, and i would appreciate if the media reporting on this event could acknowledge it. the starting point of this reflection is that before the start of the crisis the world economy was not in a balanced position. on the contrary, it was characterized by several imbalances, within individual economies and across countries. at the global level, the world economy experienced wide and growing current account imbalances

willem f duisenberg : tacis “ central bank training ” contract project introductory statement by dr willem f duisenberg, president of the european central bank, on the occasion of the signing of the tacis “ central bank training ” contract and of a protocol between the european central bank, the delegation of the european commission in russia and the central bank of russia, moscow, 13 october 2003. * * * it is a pleasure for me to be here in moscow today. while the european central bank is among the youngest central banks in the world, we have been actively setting up working relations with foreign central banks since our establishment in july 1998. in particular, we have already established contacts with the central bank of russia, the central bank of a prominent country in what we call the " euro time zone ". in this context, i should like to stress that today's signing of the tacis " central bank training " contract and of the related tripartite protocol mark a crucial step in the co - operation between our institutions, which i very much welcome. this brings me to the tacis project funded by the european union for the training of around 400 experts of the central bank of russia over 24 months. our project will concentrate mainly on the areas of banking supervision and regulation, inspection and licensing, as well as bank rehabilitation. there are two main points that i would like to emphasise : first, the eurosystem's approach to the tacis project and, second, the focus on the important issue of banking supervision. first, the eurosystem – which comprises the ecb and the euro area national central banks – is fully committed to the tacis project. the project, which will start on 1 november, will be implemented jointly by the ecb and nine national central banks ( ncbs ) of the euro area ( the central banks of austria, finland, france, germany, ireland, italy, the netherlands, portugal and spain ) on the basis of what we call a " eurosystem approach ". by " eurosystem approach ", we mean the following. the project will be co - ordinated by an ecb team consisting of mr. boris kisselevsky, who will be the project co - ordinator in moscow, and mr. michael olsen, senior financial supervision expert, and an administrative assistant in frankfurt. the ncbs as well as the non - central bank supervisory authorities of the united kingdom, finland and sweden will provide the experts for