intend to take action to support the level of the usd? among others, this is what the ecb ’ s opponent nicolas sarkozy is calling for. what do you think of his calls to see the euro depreciate? it is a very important issue, where i call on all partners in europe, in the executive branches, to be highly responsible and to demonstrate verbal discipline. let me repeat the position of the ecb, as well as the position of the euro area as a whole : exchange rates should reflect economic fundamentals and excess volatility and disorderly movements in exchange rates are undesirable for economic growth. in emerging economies with large and growing current account surpluses, especially china, it is desirable that their effective exchange rates move so that necessary adjustments occur. concerning the dollar, i have noted with great attention that the us authorities have reaffirmed that a strong dollar is in the interest of the us economy. concerning the yen, as stated by the japanese authorities, the japanese economy is on a sustainable recovery path. these developments should be recognized by market participants and incorporated in their assessment of risks. markets should be aware of the risks of one - way bets. - will the ecb interest rates be changed in the near future? i have nothing to add or withdraw from what i have said in my last press conference after the meeting of the ecb governing council in vienna on 4 october. - with what main difficulties are you, as a person in charge of the euro area, confronted with? as far as i understand, it is difficult to avoid imbalances in the euro area, which unites countries that are at very different stages of development. it is true that there are differences among euro area countries, but i would not say that these differences are bigger than those between the different states of the usa, and certainly also not bigger than the differences in economic landscape between certain parts of the russian federation. from that standpoint there is no particular difficulty in implementing the single monetary policy at the level of our very vast economy, for the euro area as a whole, which is of the size of the usa. that being said, we call for the implementation of structural reforms in order to fully achieve the single european market and to improve the flexibility of all markets of goods and services, of the labour market and of the financial market in the euro area. - a number of countries ( including lithuania and the czech republic ) postpone the euro adoption. how

regards global imbalances, this issue is constantly studied and discussed in the central bankers ’ community ; we have discussed it just recently with our colleagues from the bank of russia, earlier in a similar gathering we organise with latin american central banks. every two months in basel i meet all my colleagues of other central banks at the level of the global economy. together with chairman ignatiev and the other colleagues we look at the best ways to prevent a disorderly unwinding of global imbalances and to pave the way for an orderly and smooth reduction of these global imbalances. - how do you assess the russian banking system, its general soundness and in particular at the current juncture? i would first of all like to clarify that – of course - the assessment of the russian banking system is the responsibility of the pertinent russian authorities. the bank of russia and the eurosystem discuss relevant financial developments and stability in both economic areas, including the occasion of our annual seminars. as you know, during 2003 - 2005 the eurosystem implemented a very important technical assistance project with the bank of russia in the field of banking supervision. this project was financed by the eu and in the bank of russia it was implemented under the captaincy of the late first deputy chairman, andrey kozlov. let me take this opportunity to express my emotions in paying tribute to andrey kozlov, who was extremely dedicated to our central banking cooperation project. he is present in all our memories. - in our country many observers are in favour of taking away banking supervision from the central bank. what is your view? the ecb governing council has indeed expressed a clear opinion in this respect. in our case, financial stability and supervision, according to the treaty the eurosystem, contributes to the smooth conduct of policies pursued by the authorities in charge of prudential supervision of credit institutions and the stability of the financial system. the position of the eurosystem is very clear : we are in favour of a significant involvement of central banks in prudential supervision. we believe that this observation is valid for any free - market economy and is quite universal. in our case, maintaining the close involvement of the central banks in prudential supervision is an important condition for allowing us to contribute adequately to monitoring the risks to financial stability in the euro area and to safeguard smooth cooperation between the central bank functions and the supervisory functions, carried out at a national level. let me add that we share this view