pleasure every year to discover new talents and welcome renowned artists to frankfurt. i would like to pay tribute here to my predecessor, willem duisenberg, who was the initiator of our cultural days programme. i very much look forward to all of the 22 events that reflect the many facets of dutch culture. i am also particularly delighted that, for the first time in the history of the cultural days, the city of frankfurt has made it possible for us to hold an event at the frankfurter paulskirche and so, on 30 october, the brass and string ensemble of the royal concertgebouw orchestra will perform at this prestigious and venerable venue. we are extremely grateful to the city of frankfurt for this honour, all the more so as this concert will also be a charity event. 4. in your opinion, what defines europeans? was macht ihrer meinung nach den europaer aus? europeans share a common history, with extraordinary successes, enormous challenges over time and dramas. europeans have decided to share a common destiny – based on profound friendship, peace and prosperity – which has guided european integration for the past 60 years. we at the ecb are proud to be responsible for delivering price stability to our 330 million fellow citizens in the euro area and to contribute to the prosperity of the european union as a whole. faced with serious global challenges, we europeans can only succeed and progress if we are united, in line with the european ideal and its leitmotif of “ unity in diversity ”. raising awareness of the cultural diversity of the european union and fostering unity is what we aim to achieve through the cultural days of the ecb.

its monetary policy decisions solely on a mechanical reaction to an inflation forecast. one reason for this is that macroeconomic forecasts suffer from a number of practical shortcomings which mean that they cannot constitute the only input into policy decisions. for example, in practice the information from monetary aggregates is not incorporated into conventional macroeconometric forecasting models. however, monetary analysis is an important piece of information for assessing risks to price stability from a different perspective. as the ecb ’ s macroeconomic forecasts rely on structural macroeconomic models, they should be seen as forming part of the second pillar of the ecb ’ s strategy. these forecasts have to be cross - checked against the information from monetary aggregates for future price developments. this is the essence of the two pillar strategy. both pillars, from different perspectives, analyse economic developments in a way which contributes to forming a judgement about risks to price stability and thus inform well - designed forward - looking monetary policy decisions. when looking at forecasts, other aspects also need to be kept in mind. for example, the latest developments of key real economy variables cannot be fully integrated into macroeconomic forecasts in a timely manner. moreover, the assumptions on which the forecast is based - such as the assumed paths of oil prices or external demand - can change rapidly, causing the forecast to become quickly outdated. furthermore, it has to be kept in mind that the projections which could be published by the ecb are the products of a technical exercise which are based on the assumption that policy interest rates will not change over the forecast horizon. for this reason, they are not true forecasts about future developments but merely an input into the decision making process which is designed to inform the governing council about what to expect if interest rates are not changed for some time into the future. obviously, if the governing council identifies risks to price stability and acts on this basis by changing interest rates, the projections made by the forecast will not materialise. this is crucial to understand. the forecasts which will be published by the ecb are not predictors of the most likely outcome under all circumstances. rather they will be scenario exercises describing what would happen if interest rates did not change. for this reason the governing council will make sure that, when forecasts are published, inflation expectations should and will remain firmly focused on price stability. the publication of conditional inflation projections should not in any way influence the formation of inflation expectations. of course, the governing council will continue to look