For this reason, the ECB has been very clear that the measures it has taken are designed to be temporary in nature. Let me also emphasise that our non-standard measures do not in any way impinge upon our capacity to tighten our monetary policy stance in response to inflationary pressures. In all our actions, we have been careful to keep inflation expectations well-anchored and have remained faithful to our mandate to preserve price stability in the euro area over the medium term. Our mandate is what has guided, and will continue to guide, all our monetary policy decisions. But the success of the ECB’s crisis measures in maintaining monetary stability in the euro area should not let anyone believe that monetary policy is the medicine that can solve the underlying, more structural problems in the euro area. The lasting resolution of the crisis is the responsibility of the euro area governments. The euro area governments’ responses to the crisis Euro area governments face three main challenges. First, they need to address the internal and external macroeconomic imbalances. Second, they have to restore confidence in, and stability to, the European financial system. Third, they must deal with the remaining shortcomings in the institutional design of EMU. Let me elaborate on these factors in turn. First, the rebalancing of the euro area economies requires, first and foremost, that public sector expenditure is brought back to a sustainable path and that the debt overhang is reduced.
The report to Parliament underlying the establishment of the National Bank of Romania in 1880 saw Belgium as – and I quote – “a small but happy country”, which developed rapidly with the assistance of its national bank, rendering it a suitable model for the institutional set-up of Romania. As regards the neighbouring Netherlands, the name of Romania’s domestic currency – the leu (meaning lion) – comes from a Dutch silver coin very popular in this part of Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries: the lion-thaler. Crossing the channel, our most beloved Queen Marie was the granddaughter of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. It was her son, King Charles II, who reconstructed this Royal Palace. Moving west again, let us not forget that the Irish writer Bram Stoker took Vlad the Impaler as an inspiration for his famous novel Dracula, creating a myth that Romania is frequently associated with. Returning to Romania’s monarchs, under whose reign the country saw a remarkable modernisation, they belonged to the German House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen. As for the economic ties with Germany, I would mention the fact that the name of the street where the Old Palace of the National Bank of Romania is located, i.e. Lipscani, derives from Leipzig (Lipsca in Romanian), the place where long ago local merchants used to bring their goods from. Going further back in time, the Saxons (originating also in the Luxembourg area) settled in Transylvania, which they called Siebenbürgen (seven fortified towns).