calls more than ever to communicate as clearly as possible to our people all the elements on the situation and the economic and financial diagnosis. it is true for all countries, including those in an adjustment programme and those contributing to the financing of these programmes. the aachen speech talked of a common european finance ministry : it seemed this would be an eu27 idea. do you worry that the likes of britain would see this as a threat to their sovereignty? i mentioned explicitly it would be in a long - term perspective, which calls for changes of the treaty and which is based on the assumption that, at a certain moment in history, europeans would decide to create a new kind of confederation of sovereign nations. i said very clearly this is not for today. we know today what we have to do. it would be for the day after tomorrow. for that, we will depend entirely on the people of europe and on its will. perhaps this is a day after tomorrow question also ; do you see it as britain ’ s destiny to join the euro one day even if it seems unlikely today? i always said the uk was much welcome in the euro area and that it depended entirely on the will of the uk government and people. it is as simple as that. that being said, even without the uk we are 331m people, the same order of magnitude as the us. again, the uk is welcome and it depends entirely on the uk to decide. in any case, i am sure that the uk is a european country at the heart of europe, by all means. does the latin american debt crisis offer any lessons for this one? what is striking to see is that virtually all countries and economies that had large problems in the past decades drew the lessons from their problems and became much more resilient than the advanced economies in the occasion of the last crisis of 2007 – 08. for advanced economies now, financial sector reform is so important not only to make this sector much more resilient, but we also have to take into account that it is extremely unlikely that our democracies would put for a second time 27 % of gdp of taxpayers risk on the table. it is very likely that the decision - making processes in our democracies would not allow us to avoid another great depression if we had exactly the same kind of challenge. you were the author of the 3pc limit in the maastricht criteria and, when you were confirmed by the european parliament, even then you were emphasising over

and over again the importance of getting the fiscal side right. no one listened. why will they listen this time? they are paying a high price after a practice of benign neglect. we were preaching in the desert for a long period of time. if i have a message today, it would be to all governments, not only in the euro area, but particularly in the euro area, that they have to take fiscal policy very, very seriously. not only fiscal policy but also the monitoring of competitive indicators, the monitoring of unit labour costs. the other big lesson that emerges from reading about your earlier experiences before joining the ecb was your role in the franc fort. how important was the benefit that france evidently received from that policy in influencing the way you have approached your job in the ecb? i was in france the fervent advocate of what i called with a number of colleagues “ competitive disinflation ” : it was to say that with inflation and successive depreciation of the currency or devaluation countries don ’ t have a winning strategy but a losing strategy. that was the main message of “ competitive disinflation ”. i have heard it said that what europe faces as a whole now is a crisis of competitiveness, vis - a - vis china for instance. what germany succeeded in doing much of the west hasn ’ t, and china provides a huge wake - up call for the west. bis central bankers ’ speeches you have a formidable challenge which is coming from all emerging markets. the crisis reveals a lot of weaknesses in the advanced economies and we all have to accept that and reflect on that. all advanced economies, the us, the euro area, the uk, or the single market of the eu - 27, clearly we have a major new challenge, which is to adjust to an important role of china, india, latin america and all the emerging countries in our global economy. the fact we have to review our business model is obvious. a lot of further attention is warranted to the appropriate flexibility of our economies. structural reforms are absolutely necessary. education, science and research & development are key success factors. the progressive diminishing of phds in science and technology in the many advanced economies is not a good sign. the growth and catching - up of the emerging world is exactly what we wanted after world war two. it calls for us to adapt permanently, perhaps more rapidly than we would like. one of the impacts of the rise of emerging economies