Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet:

Well, I cannot speak of course on behalf of an institution, of which I'm no longer the president, and I have to be prudent there. I can only say that according to the legal analysis of the ECB as an institution ... and I think that my successor, President Mario Draghi, made it clear to the Members of the European Parliament representing Ireland in the ECB, the ECB is accountable only to the European Parliament, where it comes to parliamentary accountability, as a European institution. So it's not possible in our own legal analysis to participate in national parliamentary inquiries, but of course we are fully at the disposal of the European Parliament. I think, when I look at the treaty that it is fully in line ... this analysis with the letter and also with the spirit of our treaties, because accountability has to be exerted on the level where decisions are made. For the ECB, clearly, as I said, it is the European level. At the moment I am speaking, the Governing Council of the ECB decides for what it is the best in its own view, taking into account the fact that we are 330 million fellow citizens and 19 countries, and that is clearly a responsibility that calls, it seems, to accountability at the level of the European Parliament. That does not prevent me to respond to you at the present moment.