##sj : there is also a debate about whether, with the house still burning down, as it were, longer - term questions about the new global financial architecture can wait. what is your view? mr. trichet : confidence is of essence! if we want to succeed right now in this very grave crisis we have to take bold decisions now and be equally determined in reassuring our fellow citizens in the medium and long run. we have to fight against short - termism. we have to improve transparency. and we have to eliminate pro - cyclicality. fluctuations are normal in a market economy. we have to accept fluctuations, otherwise we would have no market economy – we would be in the soviet union. on the other hand, it is extremely clumsy to amplify those booms and busts. we have to concentrate on augmenting the resilience of global finance. and finally we have also to improve surveillance of the macro policies of systemic economies in order to prevent the piling up of domestic and external imbalances. the financial stability forum and the imf have a decisive role to play in these respects.

is the confidence factor. what we are experiencing is a very sharp and abrupt disappearance of confidence. so it depends very much on us that 2010 could be, or not, a year of progressive gradual recovery. it depends on the capacity of authorities and private sector together, to reinject in the economy of the world these elements of confidence that have disappeared mid september 2008. wsj : do you think the criticism that european governments have not done enough, in terms of fiscal stimulus, is justified? mr. trichet : i think it ’ s not. after the recent meeting of ministers and governors of the group of 20 in london, i had the conviction that both sides of the atlantic had understood much better each others ’ situations. there is a mutual understanding that when you take all into account, you see that on both sides of the atlantic, what has been done on the fiscal side corresponds to the gravity of the situation. to speak more directly of the euro area, you must take into account the combination of discretionary decisions that have been taken by all governments, plus the automatic stabilizers that are much more important on this side of the atlantic ; the level of public spending as a proportion of gdp, which is much higher on this side of the atlantic ; and the room for maneuver for each particular economy that existed before the crisis and exists today. to be efficient in rebuilding confidence, you have to demonstrate that you are doing, immediately and audaciously, what is necessary today. but at the same time, you have also to reassure your own people that you have an exit strategy, to reassure households that we are not putting in jeopardy the situation of the children, and to reassure businesses that what is done today is not done to the detriment of their own taxation in the years to come. activation of the economy depends crucially on confidence. and confidence today needs that we can prove to our own people that we have the right balance between the short - term and the medium - and long - term perspective. wsj : what do you think are the most urgent requirements for enacting global policy now? there are a number of measures that have been announced and not enacted. are you, for example, concerned at the pace at which the u. s. financial restructuring is going? mr. trichet : what i would recommend for us as for the us is to, now, as efficiently and rapidly as possible, do what has been decided. nothing will really work until