. the key elements of the programme are the following : ( a ) monthly asset purchases will amount to €60 billion of private and sovereign debt. the programme will amount to a total of €1. 1 trillion in asset purchases carried out from march 2015 until september 2016. ( b ) loss - sharing is reserved for those purchases that are carried out by the ecb, accounting for 20 % of the total purchases. the remaining 80 % of all purchases – i. e. purchases made by ncbs – will not be subject to loss - sharing. since the announcement of the ecb ’ s qe on 22 january, projections for real gdp growth in 2015 and 2016 have been revised upwards ( to 1. 5 % and 1. 9 %, respectively ) compared with december 2014. furthermore, model - based estimates indicate that market - based measures of inflation expectations have reacted positively to the progressive expansion of the ecb ’ s balance sheet over the last few months and have been revised upwards, as well. as far as financial markets are concerned, the impact of the asset purchase programme accounts for most of the fall in euro area long - term sovereign bond yields since last december, as market participants anticipated the ecb ’ s qe programme. government bonds across a wide range of euro area countries traded at historically low, and often negative, yields. the decline was most pronounced in the longest maturities, with yields on french and german 10 - year bonds falling by around 60 basis points, while those on italian and portuguese bonds of the same maturity shrank by 70 and 90 basis points, respectively. the major european stock markets have risen since end - 2014 by about 17 %. furthermore, the euro depreciated by 11 % since last december, hitting a 12 - year low against the dollar ( for a more detailed assessment of the ecb ’ s qe, see my earlier speech at the 33rd meeting of central bank governors ’ club in shanghai on 15 may 2015, available at : http : / / www. bankofgreece. gr / pages / en / bank / news / speeches / dispitem. aspx? item _ id = 317 & list _ id = b2e9402e - db05 – 4166 - 9f09 - e1b26a1c6f1b ). following the ecb ’ s accommodative monetary policy ( with standard and non - standard measures ) other central banks adopted similar policies

increasingly shared and their lives more interdependent than ever before. * * * let me draw to a close. twenty years ago, in 1991, my friend hans tietmeyer, the former president of the bundesbank, said that “ monetary union is not just a technical matter. it is in itself, to some extent, a political union ”. “ nobody can say today what will be the institutional framework of europe tomorrow because the future changes, which will be fostered by today ’ s changes, are unpredictable. ” bis central bankers ’ speeches this condition creates mutual responsibilities. we see that a challenge in one country can become a challenge for the euro area as a whole. addressing it requires strong responses from all member states, including germany, and from eu institutions. the global crisis has called into question the overall economic and financial strategy of major advanced economies. all have weaknesses in their economic systems. not surprisingly, the main weakness for europe was the nature of its institutional framework – in particular, that its economic and fiscal governance was not commensurate with the interconnectedness of economies sharing a single market and a single currency. the question is how to confront those obstacles. we should not look back. we must look forward – to the opportunities of europe for our collective betterment ; and to the potential for every country to be stronger and more prosperous in a well - functioning union. as far as the ecb is concerned, its governing council will continue to anchor solidly price stability and confidence in europe – stability and confidence for 17 countries and 332 million fellow citizens who have decided to unite closely with a single market and a single currency. as konrad adenauer said in aachen 57 years ago : “ gerade wird man die mahnung verstehen, dass europa uns heute schicksalsgemeinschaft ist. dieses schicksal zu gestalten ist uns ubergeben ”. “ above all, people will understand the call : that europe, for us today, is a community with a common destiny. it ’ s up to us to shape that destiny ”. thank you for your attention. bis central bankers ’ speeches