Wim Duisenberg Area Quotations

On the basis of the information available, the current stance of monetary policy is appropriate to ensure that the euro area will be able to maintain price stability over the medium term,

This reduction is to be seen as an adjustment of interest rates to an appropriate level to ensure that the euro area will be able to maintain price stability and to contribute to growth,

So we do expect to maintain a growth rate in the euro area of at least 3 percent per year for the next two years.

Economic activity in the euro area is determined mainly by domestic factors, ... Growth is very likely to continue at a reasonably robust pace.

In the past 25 years the average growth rate of euro area gross domestic product has been between 2 and 2-1/2 percent, ... We are now in for a period this year and next year when growth will be in excess, I would even say considerably in excess, of 3 percent a year.

But we are such a large autonomous economic area, comprising a market of some 300 million people, that the impact of developments outside the Euro area on the Euro area are not negligible, but very limited indeed.