interest and undervalue international interests but also the market mechanism seems to produce a similar outcome. an interesting argument in support of this view was presented in the per jacobson lecture last june in basle 6 and i quote “... there is a nationalist bias in the pro - market revolution... ” unquote. given the dominance of globalization and the interdependence of financial markets, it may seem paradoxical that there is still that much difficulty in reconciling national and international interests. to sum up on this point : i think the bretton woods institutions and indeed the united nations system were designed to reconcile national interest with global interests and to ensure the mutual consistency of national policies 7. the fixed but adjustable peg and later on the floating or managed exchange rates regime were supposed to take care of imbalances in the current account. the prevailing hybrid system of exchange rates could not clear the current account and imbalances continue to persist. the good news is that imf surveillance proved to be invaluable in the case of deficit developing countries. since the late 1980s, we have introduced several key structural reforms in jordan based on imf surveillance and imf consultations. more recently, the fsap reviews helped us introduce several key reforms in the financial sector. other developing countries may have gone through the same exercise. in this regard, the imf can play an important role in the ongoing regulatory and financial reform efforts on both sides of the atlantic. furthermore, the call for more legitimacy in representation or quotas may enhance the multilateral role of the imf and meet the concerns regarding imf governance. more importantly, i suggest that enabling the imf to provide international liquidity when needed with schemes that establish a “ global financial safety net ” and expanding its mandate in the light of the recent global crisis to include macrofinancial surveillance and spillover analysis should be seriously considered. in general, i would suggest that strengthening the imf with some enforcement mechanism, such as keynes original idea of a global clearing bank, would restore to the international monetary system some needed ownership and credibility. i believe it was the late charles kindleberger 8 who said that the international financial system will not work unless somebody should take responsibility for it. finally on this point, it is also essential for the imf to saccomanni, 2010. tommaso, 2010. carney, 2009. landau, 2010. enhance its collaboration with the financial stability board

in place until we consider the covid - 19 crisis phase to be over. let me next turn to the ecb monetary policy strategy review. after being postponed due to the crisis, the review was re - launched last month, and it is expected to be completed by september next year. the essential underlying reason for the strategy review is the profound structural changes in the euro area and in the global economy. these include, in particular, the change in the relationship between the spare capacity of the economy and inflation, as well as the long - term decline in the natural interest rate and the sluggish productivity growth. the lower natural interest rate has reduced the room for interest rate cuts, as the effective lower bound lays the floor for them. however, non - standard policy measures have alleviated this constraint to some extent. a reassessment of the ecb ’ s monetary policy strategy is all the more necessary given both the long - term low inflation – or ‘ lowflation ’ – and the damage wrought by the covid - 19 pandemic. 1 the strategy review will cover a wide range of subjects, including climate change and digitalization, and it is supported by in - depth analyses of the forces that drive inflation dynamics today – or rather, slow them down. one of the key issues of the review and of monetary policy 1 / 2 bis central bankers'speeches today is inflation expectations, and how they should or could be correctly anchored. in the early years of its operation, the ecb was seeking to establish credibility in an operating environment in which too high inflation was the main concern. this led to the ecb successfully capping inflation expectations by aiming for inflation of “ below, but close to, 2 % ”. however, in the current environment of chronically low inflation, it is more important to ensure that inflation expectations are not anchored at too low levels. today, that is regretfully the case, which has been amplified by the perceived ceiling and asymmetry in the price stability definition, as demonstrated in a recent paper by bank of finland researchers. 2 to underpin inflation expectations, the first thing to do is to make sure that our inflation target is defined as symmetric – and in particular that the public understands it as symmetric. my way of thinking is thus largely similar to that expressed by president lagarde in her recent speech. 3 in other words, what we need is, first of all, a clearly and genuinely symmetric price stability target, and secondly,