Christian Noyer: Central banks in the financial crisis – a European perspective Speech by Mr Christian Noyer, Governor of the Bank of France and Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Bank for International Settlements, at the Bank of Korea International Conference, Seoul, 1 June 2010. *  *  *  Introduction Ladies and gentlemen, It’s a great pleasure for me to address such a distinguished audience. First, let me thank the organizers of the conference for giving me the opportunity to open this second day of the conference. Yesterday’s contributions have been outstanding and, in view of our program I have very high expectations for our discussions of today. From the outset, Central Banks have been major actors in fighting the financial crisis. Overall their actions have been broadly successful. In the period to come, however, steering the economy may prove more challenging and new risks can weigh negatively on the recovery underway. A case in point is the brutal reassessment of sovereign risks by market participants. The euro-area has been at the epicentre of this phenomenon. Some market segments have become dysfunctional to a point that jeopardized the transmission of monetary policy. The Eurosystem has therefore resorted to new steps to contain those tensions and prevent their spill over to the real economy. The sovereign debt turmoil is the most recent episode of a crisis that started already more than two years ago.
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