willem f duisenberg : tacis “ central bank training ” contract project introductory statement by dr willem f duisenberg, president of the european central bank, on the occasion of the signing of the tacis “ central bank training ” contract and of a protocol between the european central bank, the delegation of the european commission in russia and the central bank of russia, moscow, 13 october 2003. * * * it is a pleasure for me to be here in moscow today. while the european central bank is among the youngest central banks in the world, we have been actively setting up working relations with foreign central banks since our establishment in july 1998. in particular, we have already established contacts with the central bank of russia, the central bank of a prominent country in what we call the " euro time zone ". in this context, i should like to stress that today's signing of the tacis " central bank training " contract and of the related tripartite protocol mark a crucial step in the co - operation between our institutions, which i very much welcome. this brings me to the tacis project funded by the european union for the training of around 400 experts of the central bank of russia over 24 months. our project will concentrate mainly on the areas of banking supervision and regulation, inspection and licensing, as well as bank rehabilitation. there are two main points that i would like to emphasise : first, the eurosystem's approach to the tacis project and, second, the focus on the important issue of banking supervision. first, the eurosystem – which comprises the ecb and the euro area national central banks – is fully committed to the tacis project. the project, which will start on 1 november, will be implemented jointly by the ecb and nine national central banks ( ncbs ) of the euro area ( the central banks of austria, finland, france, germany, ireland, italy, the netherlands, portugal and spain ) on the basis of what we call a " eurosystem approach ". by " eurosystem approach ", we mean the following. the project will be co - ordinated by an ecb team consisting of mr. boris kisselevsky, who will be the project co - ordinator in moscow, and mr. michael olsen, senior financial supervision expert, and an administrative assistant in frankfurt. the ncbs as well as the non - central bank supervisory authorities of the united kingdom, finland and sweden will provide the experts for

benoit cœure : interview with europe 1 interview with mr benoit cœure, member of the executive board of the european central bank, and europe 1, conducted by mr patrick cohen on 15 june 2018 and broadcast on 15 june 2018. * * * for three years the ecb has been purchasing huge amounts of public and private debt. almost €2. 5 trillion has been injected into the euro area economy. yesterday, the ecb announced that all this would come to a stop at the end of the year. does that mean the crisis is over? indeed, we plan to stop these purchases after december. why? for two reasons. first, europe is seeing strong growth. at the beginning of the year this growth slowed a little, but we feel that it remains robust and will bounce back and continue. and second, inflation is returning towards 2 %, which is the ultimate goal of everything we do. but the policy was working, and now you ’ re stopping it? we ’ re stopping it precisely because it has worked. but it ’ s the asset purchases that we ’ re stopping. €2. 5 trillion is not an insignificant amount, and our asset purchases have been very effective. however, we ’ re going to keep interest rates very low, at their current levels, in other words close to zero, at least through the summer of 2019. so we ’ ll be sticking with a monetary policy that will support the economy for a very long time. you haven ’ t raised interest rates since 2011, and they remain very low. so they won ’ t rise before the summer of 2019 at the earliest? something else could happen, but we don ’ t anticipate raising rates before the summer of 2019, as you say, because the economy still needs some support. but if growth picks up, could interest rates for individuals and businesses increase? long - term interest rates for individuals and businesses are naturally increasing because global growth is picking up and because us interest rates are rising. so yes, people have to be prepared. and, inevitably, government borrowing rates will also increase, and so governments will also have to be prepared. you say that people will inevitably have to be prepared. does that include our personal loans, our mortgages, for example? yes, but as i said, not right away – short - term rates will remain very low, close to zero, for a very long time, and at least until the middle of 2019. yesterday the banque de france