In the presidential election campaign, both the conservative candidate Nicolas Sarkozy and the socialist Ségolène Royal argued that the ECB should, for example, do more to support economic growth. I will only remind you that, by the will of the French democracy, the Banque de France was made independent from French politics before the establishment of the ECB, with a primary mandate for price stability. To allow the central bank to become independent, both chambers of the French parliament changed the constitution of General de Gaulle with a three-fifths majority. It rather looks like people in your home country have forgotten that. BIS Review 18/2007  1  Certainly not the people, who, according to surveys, are firm supporters of our independence. In any case, the Maastricht Treaty calls for the full independence of the central bank. Under the Treaty, governments are not even allowed to try to influence the ECB. Nevertheless, would it not be better for the ECB to be a little more flexible and – like the Federal Reserve – react more strongly to the needs of the economy as a whole? Our mandate is unambiguous. Our primary objective is price stability. And price stability is a necessary condition for sustainable economic growth and job creation. The central banks of nearly all industrialised and emerging countries have policies based around the combating of inflation, and that is precisely what our fellow citizens want.
In the process, national incumbents are being challenged by a combination of ambitious foreign incumbents eager to exploit economies of scale and nimble, unencumbered new entrants sometimes specialising in niche products. A process that is likely to lead in time to greater consolidation at international level is currently manifesting itself in terms of fragmentation at the national level as local incumbents are challenged. 36 The end-game may well be lower transaction costs at both the trade and post-trade level and more concentrated (if not monopoly) cross-border infrastructure in each. But it may take some time to reach a new equilibrium. Central banks and regulators need not only to prepare for and perhaps help shape the end-game, but also address challenges arising during the transition. BIS Review 130/2007  5  5. 37 (i)  Issues and challenges for central banks and regulators going forward Two key challenges, in particular, will need to be met: Preserve enough influence to protect the collective interest while maintaining a level regulatory playing field  38 The resilience and efficiency of the core infrastructure is an important public good and, given the tendency to monopoly, the authorities need to ensure that they maintain sufficient influence to ensure resilience in this increasingly complex landscape. That requires consistent and objective criteria to be applied to new as well as established systems.