First of all your responsibility lies with our country – your concern should be to continue to gain on the hard-won gains by our forebears. Our nation needs its capable young countrymen to take it forward and to continue to develop it into a progressive, prosperous and harmonious society for future generations.
However it is still too early to assess the impact of these developments on the outlook for prices. The Governing Council’s expectations for a gradual recovery in growth in the euro area have been confirmed by recent Eurostat estimates. These show an improvement from negative growth in the last quarter of 2001 to moderately positive rates in the first quarter of this year.