'Independence? That's middle class blasphemy. We are all dependent on one another, every soul of us on earth.'

Paul Volker était-il, politiquement vu, indépendant? (...surtout vers la fin de son mandat...)

Non...

Alan Greenspan était-il politiquement vu, indépendant?

Non...

Ben Bernanke est-il, politiquement vu, indépendant?

Non...

etc.
etc.
etc.

                         Liste pourrait continuer ad eternum...

Pancho Villa rajoute que:

"Meme la couleur de vos chaussettes n'est pas, d'un point de vue politique, indépendante..."

P.-V. adore la double negation...

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Trichet fends off ministers’ demands
By George Parker in Helsinki



Jean-Claude Trichet, European Central Bank president, on Friday delivered a stiff warning to eurozone finance ministers to back off in an escalating dispute over the bank’s independence.

Mr Trichet pointed out that it was his signature on euro banknotes and that it was unlawful under the EU treaty for finance ministers to give instructions or try to influence the bank.


His comments came at a strained news conference in Helsinki with Jean-Claude Juncker, Luxembourg prime minister, who was on Friday given a second two-year term as political head of the eurozone.

Mr Juncker said he had only agreed to carry on chairing the eurogroup – the political arm of the single currency – after finance ministers supported his plan to have an “intensified dialogue” with the ECB.

He said he “fully respected” the principle of independence for the ECB and that he did not want to influence its decisions, but he believed the euro’s monetary and political wings needed to talk more often and more frankly.

He cites the regular private meetings between the US Treasury secretary and the Fed chairman as a model of good economic governance, and says both the ECB and eurozone finance min-isters would benefit from a two-way conversation.

“I've always got the ECB in my sights but I’m also thinking of the eurozone ministers,” he said.

But Mr Trichet on Friday again refused to support the idea of additional private meetings with Mr Juncker, citing the EU treaty as being “very precise” about the way in which contacts should take place.

He said there were already “a great number of occasions for meetings together” to discuss fiscal and monetary policy with the politicians; officials at the Frankfurt-based bank view Mr Juncker's initiative as polit-ical meddling.

Several eurozone countries, notably France, have never been happy with the German idea that the ECB should operate entirely outside the political domain and have urged Mr Juncker to put finance ministers’ views across more forcefully.

One finance minister from a smaller EU country said the ECB should be allowed to get on with its job, and that only about half of the 12 eurozone countries believed Mr Juncker should press his case.

Mr Trichet has the treaty on his side and appears determined to face down Mr Juncker, a stand-off which on Friday led to renewed debate about which of the two men was the real “Mr Euro”.

Mr Juncker joked that he was “definitely called Jean-Claude”; Mr Trichet invited journalists to examine their euro banknotes where they would see his signature.

In spite of the dispute, Mr Juncker scoffed at suggestions their relationship had become so bad that they were no longer speaking to each other.

“I'm very happy with him,” he said, gesturing at Mr Trichet, who smiled wanly. “The tension isn’t unbearable, but there is an institutional tenderness,” he said. “We have excellent human relations.”

Any substantial change in the relations between eurozone finance ministries and the ECB would require a change to the EU treaty – highly unlikely in the foreseeable future – but the political jousting looks likely to continue.