mario draghi : hearing at the committee on economic and monetary affairs of the european parliament introductory statement by mr mario draghi, president of the european central bank, at a hearing before the committee on economic and monetary affairs of the european parliament, brussels, 19 december 2011. * * * dear madam chair, dear honourable members, e per me un estremo piacere partecipare per la prima volta come presidente della banca centrale europea a questa riunione. il dialogo monetario trimestrale con l ’ econ rappresenta un ’ opportunita fondamentale e la pietra angolare per un rapporto costruttivo tra le nostre due istituzioni. cet echange a lieu quelques semaines seulement apres que d ’ importantes decisions ont ete prises a la fois par le conseil des gouverneurs de la bce et par les chefs d ’ etats et de gouvernements. dans ce contexte, notre discussion promet d ’ etre particulierement riche et fructueuse. zur einfuhrung werde ich zunachst auf die aktuellen wirtschaftlichen entwicklungen im eurogebiet eingehen. anschließend werde ich mich den von ihnen gewunschten themen zuwenden, namlich dem instrumentarium zur krisenbewaltigung einerseits, sowie den rating - agenturen andererseits. i. economic and monetary developments since the last regular hearing in october with former president trichet, the ecb has taken a number of steps to ensure that it will continue to deliver price stability in the medium term in an environment that remains challenging. these steps relate both to changes in our interest rates and to non - standard measures. as you know, regarding interest rates, the governing council early december decided to lower the key ecb interest rates by 25 basis points, following a 25 basis point decrease on 3 november 2011. as regards the short - term growth outlook for the euro area, the intensified financial market tensions are continuing to dampen economic activity in the euro area and the outlook remains subject to high uncertainty. euro area economic activity should recover, albeit very gradually, in the course of 2012, as also projected by

antonio fazio : finance and recovery in the world economy address by the mr antonio fazio, governor of the bank of italy, at the aiaf – assiom – atic – aciforex, trieste, 3 february 2001. * * * globally, the growth in the money supply and the value of financial assets reached a peak last spring. the nasdaq index has subsequently fallen by one half ; the s & p 500 index first stopped rising and then, in september, began to decline. the performance of technology shares in europe has been similar to that of the us market. all the european stock exchange indexes peaked towards the middle of 2000 ; they have followed a downward trend since the last few months of last year. at the beginning of 2000 equities in all the main industrial countries except japan appeared substantially overvalued in relation to the expected growth in earnings and the risk premium implicit in valuations. a year ago we called for a " virtuous " realignment of the financial market's valuation of firms with the performance of the real economy, to be achieved through robust economic growth. the increasing divergence in the second half of the nineties between stock market prices and the actual and expected expansion in output was due to the world money supply having grown faster than the economy and to the rise in the velocity of circulation of liquid balances owing to the rapid increase in financial derivatives. one of the features of the second half of the nineties was the pace of productivity gains in the united states deriving from the spread of new technologies ; producer prices and world commodity prices remained stable. the monetary policies of the leading central banks and the interventions of the international institutions had to cope with the succession of financial crises in mexico, asia, russia and latin america. the spread of these crises was averted ; the worst effects of exchange rate instability and bank failures were kept within limits. monetary policies and the expansion in the assets of the financial intermediaries active in international markets brought a steady decline in bond yields ; the excess of liquidity was reflected primarily in the rise in share prices. the abundance of funds and the ensuing large fall in the cost of capital fueled the prolonged expansion in us domestic demand and fostered the recovery in 1999 in output and investment in asia, europe and latin america. the recovery increased the demand for oil and energy products. from the middle of 2000 onwards the ensuing rise in the oil price caused consumption to slow down in the industrial and oil -