Today is the first day of what we call the “quiet period” leading up to next week’s monetary policy meeting of the ECB. Against this backdrop, I want to emphasise that nothing I say today has any bearing on the deliberations of the Governing Council. Instead, in the true spirit of this conference, I would like to talk about swans.
Let me tell you a brief story about the Bewick’s swan. This swan has its breeding grounds in the Russian tundra and spends its winters in north-west Europe. Until around fifty years ago, it would typically spend winter in Ireland, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.