even deeper when two of these excesses take place at the same time ; and they are deepest when all three are present. 8 the global financial crisis was preceded by all three, and so the sluggish recovery of the european economy simply reinforces conventional wisdom. the resulting state of affairs is a so - called “ creditless ” recovery in the euro area. right now we are witnessing the co - existence of low levels of credit to the private sector and three consecutive quarters of positive gdp growth. such creditless recoveries are far from unusual : one out of five recoveries is “ creditless ”, and output growth during creditless recoveries tends to be lower than output growth during recoveries when the financial sector is not impaired. such recoveries are particularly common after financial crises, and are often preceded by high levels of private sector indebtedness. 9 nevertheless, it seems that declining bank credit to the private sector does not necessarily constitute a constraint on economic recovery once output has bottomed out. moreover, credit growth and output growth tend to be uncorrelated in the aftermath of financial crises that were preceded by credit booms, suggesting that private sector deleveraging does not necessarily pose a threat to the post - crisis recovery. a recent bis paper extends earlier evidence for emerging see the ecb ’ s bank lending survey. claessens, s., kose, a., and m. terrones, 2008, “ what happens during recessions, crunches, and busts? ”, economic policy 24, 653 – 700. abiad, a., dell ’ ariccia, g., and b. li, 2011, “ creditless recoveries ”, imf working paper 11 / 58 ; bijsterbosch, m., and t. dahlhaus, 2011, “ determinants of credit - less recoveries ”, ecb working paper no 1358. bis central bankers ’ speeches economies to advanced economies. 10 international evidence suggests that recoveries following financial crises are often not just creditless, but also jobless. 11 in other words, following a financial crisis, it is not uncommon to have a recovery without finance. this is an important observation, and one that is at odds with the conventional wisdom that finance is indispensable for economic growth. numerous voices these days urge european policy - makers to repair the balance sheets of banks so that they can lend again and in the process jump - start

, where credit risks are often passed from the originators of bank loans to a wide range of investors, instead of remaining on the books of the originating banks. indeed, the basel ii framework was conceived to support banks in the implementation of advanced risk management standards with the overall aim of improving the stability and soundness of the financial system in all the economies around the world. within the european union, we have gathered extensive experience with the implementation of basel ii which we are happy to share. as part of this cooperation programme, experts on banking supervision from the eurosystem will travel to moscow and support the bank of russia ’ s internal work on implementing basel ii. with regard to the internal audit component of the cooperation programme, the eurosystem will offer its expertise and advice on risk - based internal audit methods and best practices. the objective of this cooperation with the bank of russia is to enhance the capacity of the chief auditor ’ s service to carry out risk - based internal audits. in today ’ s world, central banks also need modern and sophisticated internal audit procedures. risk - based internal audits provide, on the basis of a risk analysis, assurance on the proper functioning of central bank activities, especially on those aspects where the risks are highest, rather than performing a less differentiated, simple compliance audit. such a risk - based approach represents, in our view, the appropriate response to the challenges faced by the internal audit services and we are pleased to share our experience in this field. during this part of the project, eurosystem experts will train about 350 bank of russia experts on internal audit. in the implementation of this cooperation programme, we will employ a coordinated “ eurosystem approach ” which involves the ecb and a number of national central banks of the euro area. this formula, which was conceived for the first eurosystem cooperation programme with the bank of russia on banking supervision, was successfully implemented between 2003 and 2005. over the coming 33 months, the ecb and the national central banks that i mentioned earlier will be working closely with the bank of russia on the programme. the project will be coordinated by a team consisting of ms gulsana barpiyeva, from the deutsche bundesbank, who will be the eurosystem project coordinator in moscow, mr christian fehlker, the eurosystem team leader for banking supervision, and mr lukasz kubicki, the eurosystem team leader for internal audit. the project will be managed by an ecb team