The third point in developments in the Turkish economy is that tight fiscal policy and sound debt management brought substantial improvement to the debt dynamics, which was in the centre of concerns together with inflation four years ago. So, the gross public debt declined from 107.5 percent in 2001 to 74.6 percent by the second quarter of 2005. The Maastricht criterion on gross public debt may be met in the near future. These achievements on the macroeconomic front, the improvement in the debt dynamics and the positive outlook for growth have brought more resilience to shocks and contributed to financial stability. Volatility in the financial markets has decreased; maturities are now longer; derivatives markets finally begin to develop. 5  The World Bank. Own calculations. 3/8  6  Though it is essentially a political decision, the negotiations between the EU and Turkey would not have started at all if we had not made all these achievements. Distinguished participants, Turkey’s membership implies an expansion of the EU market. The Turkish economy is among the biggest 20 economies in the world. It is the largest economy in Eastern Europe, the Balkans and the Middle East, second in the Black Sea Basin and sixth among emerging market economies. Unlike most of the new member states at the start of negotiations, Turkey already has a functioning market economy, which is far advanced in meeting the economic chapters of the acquis communautaire.
In principle, by relating new information to our most recent forecast, market players are in a good position to form a picture of policy’s direction and we can see that when we compare their forecasts of the repo rate with our own. However, one should be aware that there is a risk that an unduly simple rule or decision-making model will oblige the central bank itself to disregard other relevant information. Monetary policy is not mechanics. For this reason we have elaborated our view in various respects. We have underscored that there are also grounds for considering the periods before as well as beyond the 1–2 year horizon on which we focus. Strictly speaking, it is a matter of optimising over all future time, including both inflation and output. For a long time now we have also declared that there are transitory factors we should disregard; more recently we noted that there can be grounds for weighing a prompt return to inflation’s targeted rate against the risk of avoidable fluctuations in output. Finally, we have said that departures from our simple rule may be warranted by problems with financial stability. What is important, however, is our ambition to provide a clear explanation and motivation for such departures. Given our ambitions in this field we would risk severe criticism if we were to do so without good arguments. I should also say that if our application of the rule would continuously be modified and altered, much of its communicative and educational value would be lost.