It is with great pleasure that I am addressing you on the European Economic and Monetary Union here in Maastricht today, the very location where that Union was pieced together. It was here that we made a concerted effort some five years ago to lay the foundations for the economic and monetary stability of Europe in the 21st century.
Since then we have been busily building on these foundations with the result that we now have the outlines of the European Central Bank. The framework for monetary policy contains three main elements: its primary objective, strategy and instruments. Where the first is concerned, there can be no misunderstanding: the Maastricht Treaty prescribes that the overriding objective of ECB policy shall be price stability.