respect for what we do and healthy for our accountability. before rounding off this discussion about monetary policy, let me also touch on the question of publication of minutes, which was brought up in the discussions earlier today. i think this is an issue that has been given too much prominence in recent discussions about clarity and transparency in monetary policy. clearly, there are positive and negative aspects of publishing minutes. it can influence the internal discussions in both a positive and negative way. it can also have positive and negative effects on the way in which a central bank is perceived. i believe that the publication of minutes has been less important for the acceptance and credibility of monetary policy in sweden during recent years than the policy framework with published forecasts and a policy rule. nevertheless, i do think it was right of us to start to publish ours. concluding remarks let me conclude by underscoring that there are clearly major differences between the problems we were confronted with in sweden after our crisis and those confronting european decision - makers today. we started from scratch without any credibility, while the euro was launched in a relatively good setting drawing on the credibility of the bundesbank. but on the other hand, we had the advantage of having to manage only one country. after five years in european policy circles, i think i understand what ottmar issing means when he says that every single language reflects the unique circumstances in the country where it is spoken. along the way of trying to solve different policy problems transparency and openness have been important features to us and helped us to increase credibility for our actions. the clearer the principles and rules are that guide policy, also in the financial stability area, the better. given the complexity of european policymaking and the many different national aspects involved i think that the arguments for this clear framework and for rules are even stronger on a european level although perhaps more difficult to obtain.

was also considered to be well in line with the ambitions in other countries in europe. since 1993 the way the riksbank works has been developed quite a bit. this applies to our internal procedures, the intellectual policy framework and our external communication. since this has been my primary task during the last five years, i could go on speaking about it for ages but i shall confine myself to a set of issues related to the role of the inflation forecasts and policy rules. in my opinion, the focus on the combination of a specific, symmetric target and published forecasts set by the policymakers has been important for monetary policy ’ s credibility. by consistently presenting our forecasts and acting accordingly, we have created greater freedom of action than would otherwise have been feasible. it has been a short - cut to credibility. my favourite example is the autumn of 1998. at that time, in the midst of a fairly lively discussion of interest rate policy, similar to that in the rest of europe, we managed to cut our rate in several rapid steps without being accused of political bias. we could make our point by referring to a very concrete picture of our view on inflation. it is sometimes said that you need a firm foundation before venturing to publish forecasts. i don ’ t subscribe to that. admittedly the riksbank began by just compiling inflation indicators. it was not until 1996 that we published really comprehensive accounts of economic tendencies and inflation, followed in 1997 by the first projections of inflation. however, i personally believe that an understanding of how the riksbank acts could have been achieved sooner if we had started earlier with fuller accounts of inflation and stuck to them in policy. in this context the recent brasilian experience is interesting. in time the policy framework was augmented with what could be called a rule of action or a policy rule. we made it clear that if inflation is expected to exceed the 2 % target in the coming one to two years, then we will normally raise the interest rate and vice versa. this formulation reflects our judgement that policy ’ s effects mainly occur after a time lag of twelve to twenty - four months. the rule of action has made policy even clearer. in principle, by relating new information to our most recent forecast, market players are in a good position to form a picture of policy ’ s direction and we can see that when we compare their forecasts of the repo rate with our own. however, one should be aware that there is a risk that