##richt treaty. it says the executive branches in particular should not try to influence our decisions. it is a very clear wording. so it's not the ecb who defines its independence, it is the treaty, which was approved by the people of the member states, by the people of all our democracies. everybody is welcome to criticise our policy - the media, the analysts, the academics. and we are, as an independent institution, as a last resort, accountable to the people of europe. by the way it is not known that i go more often to the european parliament than our friends from the american federal reserve go to the us congress. die zeit : last week the french secretary of state for european affairs said in an interview that the eurogroup - the 13 finance ministers of the euro area - should be allowed to influence the ecb decisions. you reacted sharply. trichet : i made the point that what was said was contrary to what the treaty very explicitly says. die zeit : the french intend to strengthen the political influence of the eurogroup as a counter - weight to the ecb. that makes sense. each other currency area in the world has one central bank and one treasury. trichet : it's a cliche that france is always heading towards a loose monetary policy. since the creation of the franc after the revolution, the monetary policy had the very strong tradition of a currency keeping well its value over time. only during two periods of a little more than ten years over two centuries - after the second world war up to de gaulle became president and in the seventies - the french monetary policy has been loose, but it is not the french culture. from 1994 up to the implementation of euro in 1999, we achieved a lower inflation rate than the bundesbank. and we were supported by the french people. die zeit : but today the french government wants a co - ordination between the eurogroup and the ecb. trichet : the treaty organises the relationship between the central bank and the executive branches extremely well. every fortnight, we invite jean - claude juncker, the president of the eurogroup, and the commissioner joaquin almunia to our council. could there be a better way to understand what's going on in the central bank than to be the witness of the discussion of the governing council? i am also invited by the eurogroup each month. we are able to meet three times a month which is

a frequency which has no equivalent to my knowledge. die zeit : juncker argues a dialogue of three persons would be deeper than a discussion in the whole ecb - council? trichet : again the treaty organises a very frequent relationship. die zeit : as state secretary of the french tresor you pursued the idea of a stronger common economic policy in europe. now you are even stricter than the former bundesbank in explaining why the ecb must be independent. trichet : i apply the treaty! read article 108. die zeit : we have read article 111 that shares the responsibility for the exchange rate between the ecb and the finance minister of the european union trichet : the treaty organises the present responsibilities exactly as they were organised in germany since the creation of the bundesbank or in france since the setting up of an independent banque de france. die zeit : wim duisenberg once said, the bundesbank is like cream - the more you whip it the harder it gets. the same is true for the ecb. trichet : it is a poetic metaphor. but in my view, we should not be influenced in any direction. whatever happens, we have to achieve our primary mandate : price stability. die zeit : " not all germans believe in god, but all in the bundesbank ", jacques delors once said. the mark was extremely popular. the euro isn't yet. what went wrong? trichet : the euro is as stable, as credible, as a good store of value as the mark was. and look at the figures : more than 12 million jobs have been created in the euro area since 1999 many more than in the eight years before. and around 2 million more than the us have created in the same period. certainly, that has also a lot to do with the structural reforms that we have to continue implementing actively. but stable prices are a necessary condition for sustainable growth and job creation. die zeit : beyond all political differences there was always an economic consensus in europe : freedom for goods, services, labour and capital. now the french president nicolas sarkozy attacks the european principle of free competition, and also european institutions, especially the ecb. what holds europe together? trichet : we live in a world of very rapid changes, thanks to science and technology, thanks to globalization. there are major changes in the division of labour. and there is a temptation in particular nations to turn