It was in the first weeks after the establishment of the ECB in June 1998 that I received a letter by the late Nobel Prize laureate Milton Friedman, who congratulated me on my appointment as member of the Executive Board – which he called “an impossible job.” He was convinced that monetary union in Europe was doomed to fail.
在1998年6月欧洲央行成立的最初几周内，我收到了诺贝尔奖获得者Milton Friedman的信，他祝贺我被任命为行政理事会成员，这一他称之为“不可能完成的工作”。他坚信欧洲的货币联盟注定要失败。可是今天，很难再找到不承认欧元是个巨大成功的人。欧洲央行一直走得很稳，以至于人们认为它的成功理所当然地来之毫不费力。