In opening this chapter recently I have been reminded of some of the social elements of those early days and I hope that many of you here will help in the coming months to paint in these aspects of the picture with anecdotes from times past.
In the euro area, the ten-year sovereign spreads vis-à-vis the German benchmark have reached levels not seen since the start of EMU (this morning: Italy 88 bp, Spain 56 bp, Belgium 53 bp, France 26 bp). A common shock – namely, the sharp increase in risk aversion in global markets – thus led to different responses in the government bond market.