the Bundesbank

He said Axel Weber, president of the Bundesbank, had presented an even more optimistic forecast to the cabinet yesterday.

However, the board of the ECB is an independent authority whose independence has to be respected even by the Bundesbank.

Huge asset and liability positions have now emerged among the national central banks, with the Bundesbank the dominant creditor (see chart).

Axel Weber, now head of the Bundesbank, is favoured to become the next president of the European Central Bank.

When Spain and Ireland adopted the euro, they imported low interest rates from Germany: the ECB was the Bundesbank writ large.

"The German upswing in 2006 was not a one-year wonder, " Hermann Remsperger, executive board member at the Bundesbank, said.

Jens Weidmann, the president of the Bundesbank, rejected the banking-licence idea.

In late February, for instance, the Bundesbank, the country's central bank, condemned the idea as an opaque inter-governmental transfer.

On Monday the Bundesbank's president questioned the right of the ECB to act as a lender of last resort.

However, the Bundesbank "never faced such a big financial and banking crisis" , says Mr De Grauwe.

In Frankfurt, however, the Bundesbank stresses the differences between the cases of IKB and Sachsen LB.

Third, there must be a new European central bank based on the Bundesbank, preferably not led by a German.

The Bundesbank's concerns were first reported by Germany'sDer Spiegel magazine over the weekend.

But ECB-watchers think Mr Weber had little choice but to voice his reservations, if only to quell discord within the Bundesbank.

That calm will sit well with the Bundesbank's view that panics blow themselves out, and that what matters most is long-term stability.

The European Central Bank and the Bundesbank have opposed the principle of eurozone central banks lending to the eurozone via the IMF.

The Bundesbank is already subject to conflicts of interest over these bond purchases.

The Bundesbank came to a similar conclusion in its monthly report.

The book caused an uproar in the political elite; had he not resigned the Bundesbank would have fired him.

Even then, as Mr Issing makes clear, the Bundesbank believed the single currency needed greater political union.

I am not surprised that the Bundesbank's Mr Weber resists the publication of stress tests for the banking system.

Germans may long to have the Bundesbank in charge again.

Once the Bundesbank starts guarding against a breakup everybody will have to do the same.

But the Bundesbank, the country's central bank, remains wary about the sustainability of the recovery.

If the pressures become so great that a break-up of the euro seemed likely, could even the Bundesbank really say no?

The Bundesbank exchanges damaged euro coins for banknotes at face value.

The Bundesbank is also tightening credit conditions at home.

Third, and most importantly, the Bundesbank achieved its past prominence because it was steering Europe's main economy.

The Bundesbank forecasts that consumption will grow at a similar rate to GDP by 2012.

Nein, that would amount to taking the Bundesbank's gold.

The Bundesbank has been and remains vociferously opposed.

The Bundesbank cut its discount rate 3. 5%, the lowest level in seven years.

The Bundesbank has become aware of the danger.

In June, the Bundesbank had forecast almost 2 per cent growth in 2010.

The Bundesbank, for example, is no keener on the idea than it is on bond buy-backs.