With the creation of the euro, that stability culture has been fully “Europeanised”, and was given a legal face in the Maastricht Treaty and an institutional face in the form of the European Central Bank. What has been achieved in the first ten years of the euro is substantial, both in economic terms and in institutional terms.
Very solid foundations are in place in order to preserve these achievements, and this gives us confidence for the future. Let me now turn to the current crisis and the toolkit developed by the ECB in response. II.