PARIS (MNI) – European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet,
in a parting message before relinquishing his post on Tuesday, urged
European leaders to quickly enact all elements of the debt crisis rescue
deal they struck in the early hours of last Thursday morning.

“This accord must be rigorously and rapidly applied in all its
dimensions, including the improvement of [economic] governance,” Trichet
told French daily Le Monde in an interview published over the weekend.
“Policymakers must try to be ahead of all events, even if the time it
takes to make decisions in our democracies is not necessarily the same
as in the markets.”

Trichet, whose eight-year term finishes at the end of the day
Monday, said one of the “principal challenges” for the Eurozone is to
communicate with investors in the rest of the world, “who have a hard
time understanding European decisionmaking processes.” If the European
decisions are applied rapidly, then “the Eurozone nations have the means
to improve the perception that the rest of the world has of Europe.”

Asked about criticism from Germany and elsewhere that the ECB may
have overstepped its bounds in fighting the crisis, Trichet restrained
himself, unlike on some other occasions. In a democracy, he said,
criticism is “natural and necessary.” While certain people in Germany
and elsewhere think the ECB has been too “bold,” others accuse it of
being too cautious, he noted.

He repeated his line that since its inception in 1999, the ECB has
held the line on inflation, at an average of 2% annually. “We have done
what the European democracies asked of us.”

Trichet said that European institutions must have the power to
impose the rules on nations that repeatedly break them. “In that way, we
can avoid a situation in which one particular economy can influence
negatively the rest of the [Euro]zone,” he argued. Eventually, he said
he could envisage these institutional powers evolving in the direction
of a “true European executive branch.”

Trichet did not discuss current monetary policy issues; with his
successor Mario Draghi taking office on Tuesday and presiding over his
first ECB monetary policy meeting on Thursday, such comments by the
outgoing president would surely have been impolitic.

Asked by Le Monde whether it wasn’t dangerous for a ship crossing
through a dangerous storm to change captains, Trichet — himself an
experienced sailor — responded by extending the metaphor. “The ECB crew
is on the bridge, and is not changing,” he said. “The future president
has been aboard for years. He participates in all the decisions in a
collegial fashion. He has considerable experience.”

In another interview appearing over the weekend with Germany’s Bild
am Sonntag, Trichet covered a lot of the same ground, and waxed
philosophical. He was asked whether, as a “man of money,” he agreed with
the dictum that money ruled the world.

“No, I would not say that at all,” Trichet replied. “Ideas rule the
world – hopefully. Money is a means, not an end; an instrument, not the
ultimate goal.”

In both interviews, he criticised the excesses of the financial
sector, in particular the large bonuses paid to the top executives at
major banks. He expressed a certain sympathy with the “Occupy” movement
that started on Wall Street and has spread to financial centers around
the world.

“We should be very conscious of the fact that certain behaviour in
the markets has caused considerable irritation. That includes the size
of certain bonus payments,” Trichet said. “This has shocked the public
on both sides of the Atlantic. We therefore need a change in values and
a change in behaviour in this respect.”

–Paris Newsroom, +331-42-71-55-30; bwolfson@marketnews.com

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