interest rates again. in september we judged that in order to get to that point, interest rates had to be lowered. what are the assumptions on which the ecb bases its projections? our baseline assumption is that there will be an orderly brexit and the trade conflicts will be resolved. but there are still prominent downside risks. let ’ s talk about the individual measures. economists on the outside as well as members of the ecb ’ s governing council have been critical of the asset purchases in particular. the governing council seems to be divided. the difference of opinion stems from the fact that the economic situation is not very clear. in the past, it was usually fairly obvious what measures needed to be taken. 1 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches and that ’ s not the case right now? we ’ re looking at a temporary economic slowdown, but there is no recession and the risk of deflation is low at present. there is broad agreement that the situation warrants action, and that ’ s what ’ s important. opinions diverged only on the size and type of measures to be taken. some central bank chiefs, including bundesbank president jens weidmann, publicly criticised the decision immediately after it had been taken. does that damage the ecb ’ s credibility? i don ’ t think it ’ s a problem for the outside world to know that there are a number of different viewpoints, because that shows that we strive, collectively and collegially, to reach the right decision. incidentally, it ’ s quite normal for there to be differences of opinion at other central banks such as the bank of england or the federal reserve. the important thing is that we make the decision collectively and implement it collectively. but how do you explain the fact that the ecb is planning to buy additional government bonds even though their yield is already below zero? the reason yields are so low is that the economic outlook has deteriorated and the market was already expecting us to loosen monetary policy in response to that deterioration. if we had not done so, rates would have risen, and that would have exacerbated the weakness in the economy. many economists are arguing that the german government in particular should be doing more in terms of fiscal policy to support the economy. what is your view? countries with high levels of government debt should concentrate on structural reforms. but large countries with sound finances can stimulate demand during a period of economic weakness through public spending or tax breaks. so when they

from the first day of the euro that we would have a significantly higher level of transparency. first, we thought it was necessary to give to the public the economic and monetary diagnosis of the governing council, and the reasons why the monetary policy decision was taken, immediately after the meeting. this quasi real time display of the detailed reasoning of the governing council took the form of five to six pages of “ introductory remarks ”. second, we considered it to be useful to give additional explanations to the media, to market participants and to the general public in the form of a press conference that would take place immediately after the governing council and would be introduced by the “ introductory statement ”. the ecb, in so doing, contributed to a significant change in the state of the art on transparency of central banking. today central banks are more often giving real time information on their decisions, generally in the form of explanatory communiques that are published immediately with the decision. we remain nevertheless quasi unique amongst see berger, h., m. ehrmann and m. fratzscher ( 2006 ), “ monetary policy in the media ”, ecb working paper no. 679. major central banks in publishing a detailed analysis in quasi real time and in having a press conference. why were we so keen to introduce a new and bold concept of transparency? i think we had three main reasons : firstly we had to consider that we were launching a new currency to which we had to transfer the full legacy of stability, of confidence, of credibility which was the characteristics of the most credible previous national currencies. the maastricht treaty had been entirely based upon this benchmarking concept. and our goal, in the moment of the transition, was to fully respect the promise made to the people of the euro area namely : “ the new currency will be at least as credible and as confidence inspiring as was your own national currency. ” in this perspective it was very important to explain in real time our decisions to be as clear as possible on our diagnosis and reasoning with a view to convince observers that the new currency deserved fully this very high level of credibility. secondly we also had to take into account the fact that we were issuing a new currency for eleven countries, eleven cultures and ( soon to become twelve and then later on thirteen and fifteen today ) and many languages. in this framework it was indispensable to have extremely clear single terms of reference from the very moment of the colleg