Mr. Brendan Halligan:

I welcome everybody here today. Could I ask everybody to take their seats as we are about to commence? Thank you very much. Good afternoon and you are all very welcome, but before we formally commence the proceedings, a little bit of housekeeping. Perhaps, as a sign of the era in which we live, you might all wish to check your mobile phone to ensure that it is either switched off or is on silent. Secondly, you will observe the exits, behind you in here and one here, should it be necessary for us to vacate the hall unexpectedly. Okay?

My name is Brendan Halligan. I am the chairman of the Institute of International and European Affairs, which is hosting this event here today. And the institute is delighted to welcome Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet, former President of the ECB, to deliver a lecture, to which there will be two respondents. The institute, for its part, is very proud of the key role it plays in informing decisions about Ireland's strategic decisions, direction, its policies and its investments. Our distinguished visiting speakers provide a vital complement to our own research programmes, and this year, for example, we have provided in-depth analysis from an Irish perspective on Britain and Europe, the dangers inherent in the potential British withdrawal. Equally, our work on banking union has brought compliments from across the European financial services industry and our work on climate change is, of course, renowned. We ... all of us live in political and economic times of great complexity and, indeed, uncertainty. The institute understands this context and its implications. Hopefully, we are acknowledged and appreciated because we narrow the assumptions which underpin the most effective strategic planning.

Today, as I said, our guest is Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet, former President of the European Central Bank and an honorary governor of the Banque de France. He is presently chairman of the Group of Thirty, based in Washington, which aims to deepen understanding of international economic and financial issues, to explore the international repercussions of decisions taken in the public and private sectors, and to examine the choices available to market practitioners and policymakers. He is also chairman of the Bruegel Institute, the leading economic think-tank in Brussels with whom we have a collaborative relationship, and he is chairman of the Trilateral Commission for Europe. He is also a member of the Institut de France. He was born in Lyon. He is an honorary inspecteur générale des finances, an ingénieur civil des mines. He is a graduate of the École Nationale Supérieure des Mines de Nancy and of the Institut d’Études Politiques de Paris in economics, and of the École Nationale d’Administration, the famous ENA, which some say governs France. In 1978 he was made an adviser to the Minister for economic affairs and was appointed adviser to the President of the republic. In '87, he became director of the treasury and an alternative governor of the International Monetary Fund and of the World Bank. He was appointed governor of the Banque de France in 1993 and became a member of the council of the European Monetary Institute, the precursor of the ECB, from 1994 to 1998, and thereafter a member of the governing council of the ECB. He was reappointed for a second term as governor of the Banque de France. In October 2003, he was appointed President of the European Central Bank for a term of eight years, ending on 31 October 2011. In late 2010 until the end of October, he was also chairman of the European Systemic Risk Board, the ESRB. He is a commandeur de la Légion d’honneur and has been honoured by governments of Austria, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland and Portugal in Europe and many others besides, and, of course, by universities, research institutes and business organisations worldwide.

Our institute had the honour of first receiving him in November 1997 in his capacity as governor of the Banque de France when he spoke on EMU, the final preparations. We received him for the second time in February 2009, this time in his capacity as President of the ECB, when he spoke on the external and internal dimensions of Europe's competitiveness and during the visit, he engaged in widespread discussions with the Irish policy community and Irish policy leaders.

So today we are privileged to welcome you back for the third time, on this occasion in a personal capacity to speak on the governance of the eurozone, past, present and future, this lecture being part of a series we have already initiated on international economics and finance, the first speaker of which was only as late as last Tuesday, the governor of the Central Bank of Iceland. So it gives me great pleasure now to call upon Mr. Jean-Claude Trichet to address us on the topic of the Governance of the Eurozone: Past, Present and Future.