This has not been an easy journey and we had to drive on rocky roads and absorb various shocks, including food and oil price gyrations as well as the consequences of the terrible terrorist attacks in the US.
Over these years, the euro has always been a force for stability and it remains so also in what is now a more than three-year period of economic and financial instability. In Europe, as in all other major advanced economies, we are now called to react to the challenges posed by the crisis.