Ladies and gentlemen, the Vice-President and I are here today to report on the outcome of today’s meetings of the Governing Council and of the General Council of the European Central Bank. Let me start with the Governing Council’s discussion on recent economic developments and the decisions that the Governing Council has taken today in the field of monetary policy.
BIS central bankers’ speeches  3  banks undertake, they can still find themselves in a liquidity crisis. Here the role of the central bank acting as a lender of last resort is critically important. A central bank has the unique ability to effectively liquefy assets so that a bank can meet its liabilities (so long as its assets exceed those liabilities).