All done in a matter of minutes

Date: 21/05/1998

Wim Duisenberg is keen to show how committed the European Central Bank will be to 'openness' and 'transparency' when it opens for business.

So the future president of this esteemed institution moved quickly to quash a recent rumour about how long the public would have to wait before being allowed to see the minutes of the bank's meetings.

Apparently, a translating error meant that members of the European Parliament's economic and monetary committee were told that the Union's citizens would have to wait 60 years before they could find out what deals Europe's central bankers had been cooking up.

However, with his usual eloquence, Duisenberg quickly put the record straight. “I should like to dispel any confusion which may have arisen from the translation of my earlier answers. I mentioned a period of 16 years,” he told them.

Frankly, the period might as well have been 60 years for all the use 16-year-old minutes will be.