are now able to buy more german exports again, which, for german companies, is partly making up for the decline in trade with china. but it is a slow process because the crisis was more severe than anything we ’ d had since the second world war. bild : and when will interest rates rise again? draghi : it ’ s quite simple : when the economy is growing more strongly again and inflation rises closer to our objective. low interest rates today will lead to higher rates tomorrow. bild : does the ecb ’ s policy of cheap money not make it far too easy for euro area countries like italy and france, for example, to shirk necessary but unpopular reforms? draghi : no. the majority of governments are acting, albeit too slowly for my personal taste. all of them would be well advised to do more. but that is not primarily dependent on the ecb and its policies. most countries started to implement reforms when the level of interest rates was already very low. furthermore, reforms of judicial systems, electoral laws or labour laws, for example, don ’ t have much to do with interest rates. so i don ’ t find the argument convincing that we have to keep up the pressure. it is also not our task. it would not be democratic for a central bank to dictate to elected governments what they have to do. bild : mr draghi, in your first interview with bild four years ago, we spoke a lot about greece. the country has still not got back on its feet, even though it has received hundreds of billions in emergency loans. when will the madness end? draghi : clearly, last year was an economic setback for greece. now everyone is aware that there can be no growth without reforms. and what the country and its people need above all is growth. greece has implemented many reforms in the past few months and is committed to the path of reform. bild : is the euro a part of the solution for greece, or a part of the problem? draghi : greece ’ s challenges have little to do with the euro. it would have to implement reforms in any case. in the euro area, greece can do that with the support of its partners. but one thing must be clear : who belongs in the euro area and who does not is not for the ecb to decide. that is a matter for the member states. bild : they are now more fractious than ever. is that

the uk was left with what one leading fund manager gloomily described as a “ third world settlement system in a first - rank financial centre ”. equity settlement relied entirely on paper certificates, passing through an average of 25 pairs of hands for each trade, each time running the risk of getting lost, misfiled or stolen. settlement occurred only once a fortnight, and on a fixed rather than a rolling timetable. unsurprisingly, a fifth of all trades failed to settle on time. if the case for change was clear, so too was the common purpose shown by the public authorities. as pen kent, the bank ’ s executive director in charge of crest said at the time, “ taurus gave the bank the legitimacy to step in and get on with the job : it needed a market failure to get everyone pointed in the right direction. ” the bank of england, called upon privately to act by the chairman of the stock exchange, had two main goals : first, to reduce the material risks to financial stability posed by such an extended and uncertain settlement process ; and, second, to ensure the uk had an efficient and internationally competitive market infrastructure. there is no doubt that the second of these goals weighed particularly heavily with the bank ’ s governors of the day. not everyone agreed that the bank should become closely involved, worrying that it could be a costly and reputationally risky distraction from the post - erm project of repositioning the bank as an organisation capable of taking on independent responsibility for setting monetary policy for the country as a whole. but the majority view won out, bolstered by the active support of the uk government, notably hm treasury, which took responsibility for ensuring that the complex and extensive legislative changes required were delivered in a timely and effective way. a securities settlement task force, led by the bank, met for the first time on the morning after the collapse of taurus to begin the task of translating these broad objectives into a clear set of policy - based principles for change. three months later, after extensive consultation with market participants and users, it set out its recommendations 4 – in many ways a classical statement of the full range of ways in which a central bank can become involved in infrastructure design : 1. settlement processes should be streamlined and automated, moving from paper to electronic media ( hard infrastructure ) ; 2. settlement times should be reduced dramatically over time, moving from fixed to rolling t + 10 in mid - 1994, to rolling t + 5 in 1995, and