Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet:

Thank you, thank you very much for these issues and questions. I would say I would agree, of course, that the developments have been remarkable, provided they are implemented in the fiscal compact, six-pack, two-pack, what we call the European semester, all the fiscal elements. I think we that we should not forget the MIP and the full implementation of the macroeconomic imbalance procedure, which again, as I already said, seems to me as important as the SGP because you can have a pretty good fiscal positioning and you can lose at the same time competitiveness, embark on big imbalances and then, of course, have a crisis. But all what has been decided, including, of course, the banking element and also the tools that have been set up through a treaty - the ESM has been established through a new treaty - all this is good; it is not sufficient. So I would respond yes, these moves are not sufficient and I would insist particularly on the fact that we must have, as I already said, more capacity to sustain cycles at the level of Europe through the fiscal embryo of federal budgets I have already mentioned and an element .. additional element for the executive branch, so to give more clout to the equivalent of a minister of finance of the EU area, which would have, of course, the responsibility to care for the SGP and MIP, on the one hand, and also to represent the euro area in international institutions so that we would appear as really a single entity. And again there is my call for more democratic accountability for difficult decisions in exceptional cases and we know that it might happen that there are disagreements between the European institutions and a national government. We are observing that now. We must have a way to have a final say which would be unchallengeable democratically.

As regards the relationship between the ins and outs. First of all, the working assumption of the Maastricht treaty was at the time they will all be in, right or wrong. At the present moment, out of all the members of the European Union, you have only two countries that have an opting-out clause, as you know, Denmark and the UK and the paradox is that Denmark with an opting-out clause is totally following the monetary policy of the EU area.

As you know, there is a total, absolutely total imitation of what we are doing at the level of the euro area by Denmark. So ... and when we had the negotiation of the fiscal compact, again, practically all countries, but two, decided not to join in the discussion, because all the others were making the working assumption that later, or sooner, they would be a member of the euro area. So, the best would be for me to have as encompassing as possible the governance of the euro area, the SGP after all is for all, but for the euro area members it bites, not for the non-euro area members, with the recommendation ... possible sanctions. The decision-making process, I imagine, of course would go only for the members of the euro area, but the rules should be as they are, applied to all, and the same for the MIP. I would say it's very important that we continue to be as united as possible, including with the outs, in my opinion in the European Union. And after all, we have embarked on a historical process. We have to judge what we do at the level of historical endeavours. We started 65 years ago with ideas, speeches, Robert Schumann's speeches, the activity of Jean Monnet. We are 65 years later, and we have, you know, made a lot of progress. We have enlarged considerably, even in the crisis, and it is something which I found absolutely striking. We were 15 members of the euro area at the moment of the crisis when Lehman Brothers collapsed, and we had countries in great difficulty. Ireland knows that better than anybody. The 15, at the moment I am speaking, are all there. Of course, with Ireland, which is a fantastic success, but also with Greece, at the moment I am speaking, and four of the new sovereign countries entered in the euro area, so that we are 19 not 15, 19. So, it gives an idea of what is a historical endeavour, which goes on even in a terrible, terrible period.

Last point - I would very very much call for economic governance in the EU in general and in the EA also, going through quasi-federal method, community method, and not through Government corporation. That being said, I have to say that in the crisis, with all the major difficulties of the crisis, governments find out ways to go through it, and I think we have to accept and recognise that, all taken into account, the sense of the unity of Europe triumphed. But of course it goes without saying that in the medium and long run, we have to be much more community-oriented.