christine lagarde : interview with france 2 interview with ms christine lagarde, president of the european central bank, conducted by mr jean - paul chapel and broadcast on 24 january 2020. * * * good morning, christine lagarde. this is your first television interview in france since taking up your new position at the european central bank in november. thank you for giving it to france 2 and telematin. french people knew you as the minister of economy and then as managing director of the international monetary fund ( imf ). and now, as head of the ecb, you have an even more powerful role and the financial markets scrutinise everything you say. do you have to weigh every word? you have to speak sparingly enough for your message to remain solid and credible. and central bankers obviously have to be careful in sending out signals because financial markets and analysts are watching and will draw certain conclusions in order to decipher what they should focus their efforts on and where they should move their funds to. let me briefly touch on france. today is a day of strikes in protest against the pension reform which will be presented to the cabinet today. are you in favour of this pension reform? at the moment i am not in a position to assess the structure of the text. in terms of price stability, of the main economic indicators, we know it ’ s important for each and every citizen to have enough certainty as to what will happen when they retire in 10, 15 or 20 years ’ time. so any reform that helps bring about that certainty and clarifies the future retirement landscape, and which does not generate any inequality, will be good for economic policy and for monetary policy. and that applies to all products involving future payment or returns. turning to monetary policy now, to the interest rates that are set by the ecb. these interest rates are persistently low, practically zero. so europeans are earning next to nothing on their savings. in france, the interest rate on the livret a is 0. 5 % and the return on life insurance is not much better. inflation is eroding the savings of those on the lowest incomes. that ’ s true. both rates need to be seen in parallel : the rate of return and the rate of inflation. above all, we need to ask why the rates are low. we are in an environment, in europe but also in all of the advanced economies, where the rates are generally low and have fallen

, the governor ’ s closing address for the la granda courses. for an analysis of the impact on the financial markets of the various milestones linked to the eu recovery fund, see box 5 of the " quarterly report on the spanish economy ", economic bulletin, 3 / 2020, banco de espana. see also arce et al. ( 2020 ) and box 3. 4 of the 2019 annual report of the banco de espana for a discussion of the role of fiscal policy coordinated at european and international level in the current context. supply of safe european assets, facilitating the general functioning of financial markets and the specific conduct of monetary policy. references aguilar, p., o. arce, s. hurtado, j. martinez - martin, g. nuno and c. thomas ( 2020 ). “ la respuesta de la politica monetaria del bce frente a la crisis del covid - 19 ”, occasional paper, banco de espana, forthcoming. andreeva, d. and m. garcia - posada ( 2019 ). the impact of the ecb´s targeted long - term refinancing operations on banks ’ lending policies : the role of competition, working paper no. 1903, banco de espana. arce, o., r. gimeno and s. mayordomo ( 2017 ). making room for the needy : the creditreallocation effects of the ecb ’ s corporate qe, working paper no 1743, banco de espana, forthcoming in review of finance. arce, o., i. kataryniuk, p. marin and j. j. perez ( 2020 ). thoughts on the design of a european recovery fund, occasional paper no 2014, banco de espana. arce, o., m. garcia - posada, s. mayordomo and s. ongena ( 2018 ). adapting lending policies when negative interest rates hit banks ’ profits, working paper no 1832, banco de espana. arce, o., g. nuno and c. thomas ( 2019 ). “ the eurosystem ’ s monetary policy following the end of net asset purchases ”, analytical articles, economic bulletin 1 / 2019, banco de espana. bernanke, b. s., m. t. kiley and j. m. roberts ( 2019 ). “ monetary policy strategies for a lowrate environment ”, aea papers and proceedings, no 109