did not invest money, like goldman sachs, in shares, options and highly controversial bonds, but focused with your majority – rather conservatively – on savings books, german government bonds and life insurance policies. because of the ecb ’ s low interest rate policy, they are currently experiencing a clear drop in wealth. savings accounts and insurance policy pay - outs are melting. draghi : interest rates have been very, very low for a long time – and they will presumably stay like that for a while longer. people see that the returns on their savings and the profits from their life insurance policies are shrinking. we understand the concerns of savers. but now let me ask a question : is that the only factor? my answer is no. after the crisis, germany became a safe haven. a lot of money therefore flowed into the country, with the result of falling interest rates on medium and long term bonds – the interest rates of which are not set by the ecb. this has hurt some savers but also benefitted borrowers, for example those who bought houses. wait a minute – it was your institution which lowered the key interest rate step by step, to 0. 05 % at the moment. savings are no longer worth very much in this environment. draghi : in an environment of widespread economic weaknesses and falling inflation, our monetary policy has to be accommodative. is that cause or effect? we have to look at the whole euro area. if we raised interest rates, the crisis would be worse. stability would suffer – and that would hurt investors and savers even more. we are keeping interest rates low to stimulate the real economy and to achieve price stability. in order to save the euro, you announced decisive measures in the middle of 2012 – “ whatever it takes ”. does that mean that you are consciously putting german savings at risk to save the euro? draghi : no. quite the opposite. the risk for the german tax payer has gone down. recall that internal loans between some central banks in the ecb system, the famous target 2 loans, were previously much higher. they have already gone down by half. the answer is not really reassuring. low interest rates are still low interest rates. draghi : in the united states, interest rates were also low and people complained about it. when the recovery took hold, long term interest rates started to rise again. likewise in the euro area, interest rates will rise and normality will return. many german

“ hot property : the housing market in major cities ” introduction speech by klaas knot at the dnb high - level seminar amsterdam, 24 may in his opening speech at the dnb housing market seminar, klaas knot shares his view on how housing prices can become a problem for broader economic wellbeing, and thus form an area of interest to central bankers. a more balanced and suitable supply of housing is needed. the new dutch housing agenda is a promising example of the leading role our government should play on the dutch housing market. distinguished guests, welcome to amsterdam! the city with the highest house price rises in the netherlands and, last year, also in the eurozone. i live here, so i have witnessed the soaring prices at first hand. amsterdam, like many capital cities, has led the rebound in the dutch housing market, which started in 2013. prices here began to take off, and within a few years were growing at annual rates of over 15 %. it is the same story in other large cities in the netherlands. and more recently, the rest of the country has followed this trend, so house prices are rising everywhere. my work takes me all over the globe, to the world ’ s major cities. many of you come from these cities, in europe : london, paris and stockholm, but also washington, seoul and sydney. and similarly, i have seen with my own eyes similar housing market dynamics in these locations, as they are becoming increasingly popular. this is why we invited you all here, to discuss some serious questions. do we agree on the analysis of the problems in this field? could we learn from each other ’ s best practices? is there one solution? my view but first, please allow me to share my view. as a resident, as the president and of course as an economist. while the increased popularity of cities worldwide may be good news for these places, and for homeowners, it also poses challenges. demand for urban housing is strongly outstripping supply. this leads to the surge in housing prices that we are seeing. at the same time, it also puts pressure on rental markets. and although supervisors, central banks and governments have strengthened mortgage regulation since the crisis, the risk of a credit - driven boom always looms. after all, homeowners are often willing to take on more debt to be able to live in the city. we haven ’ t yet seen a credit boom in the netherlands, but in some other