. some participants in the discussion on crisis management envisage further, more extensive agreements. however, i see the danger that flexibility in financial crisis situations will be limited if such further, more extensive agreements are reached. each crisis is unique. predetermined contingency plans would restrict flexibility and could therefore impede an optimum solution being reached. this applies even more, as a private sector solution always has priority. ex ante agreements on the sharing of the financial burdens of a crisis are, in my opinion, unfeasible and problematic. to be honest ladies and gentlemen, i ’ m finding it difficult to think of an appropriate conclusion. i will, therefore, finish by asking you to bear my initial comments in mind. thank you very much for your attention. see : ecb, the eu arrangements for financial crisis management, monthly bulletin, february 2007, p 73 ff.

attach to an interest rate change of 25 base points at the next governing council meeting. it should be clear, however, that this probability is critically dependent on the assumption of a fixed interest rate spread between the expected onemonth rate and the deduced expected minimum bid rate. a one base point change in the assumed spread would lead to a change in the probability of a 25 base point hike by 4 base points. given the current money market distortions, however, considerable fluctuations in the spread between the one - month rate and the minimum bid rate cannot be ruled out. one reason could be tensions on the swap market owing to a decline in market participants ’ willingness or ability to take risks. our assessment of financial markets ’ uncertainty regarding their interest rate forecast could also be distorted by the current financial market turmoil because of variations in the risk premia contained in the three - month money market interest rates : in order to estimate market participants'uncertainty regarding their interest rate forecast, we derive the risk - neutral density from options on the three - month euribor future. the more certain market participants are about their point forecast on the three - month euribor, the smaller the standard deviation of the estimates should be. we therefore usually interpret a change in the expected three - month euribor distribution as indicating a change in financial markets ’ expectation of eurosystem policy rates. however, currently we cannot rule out the possibility that the financial market turbulence has caused volatility in the risk premium which is currently contained in the interest rate for unsecuritised three - month - money ( euribor ). in order to obtain an answer to the question of what factors are driving an expected change, we continuously analyse the development of the euribor - forward three - month eonia swap spreads. that is the difference between an implied three - month interest rate derived from euribor rates and one derived from eonia swaps. in general, this spread provides information on liquidity premiums for different maturities in the money market. financial market expectations of a steady decline in money market uncertainty would imply not only an ongoing drop in liquidity premiums but also lower premiums for time periods further in the future compared to less distant time spans. 5. 2. 2 financial - market - based expectations on important economic indicators in addition to this money - market analysis, we monitor the development of capital marketoriented measures of risk premia. assuming freedom from arbitrage in capital markets,