ANNUAL REPORT 2008 - Polymer Bank Notes of the World

2 COMMUNICATION ACTIVITIESThe ECB addresses a variety of audiences, suchas financial experts, the media, governments,parliaments and the general public, with varyinglevels of knowledge of finance and economics.Its mandate and decisions are therefore explainedthrough a range of communication tools andactivities which are constantly being refinedin order to make them as effective as possible,taking into account the different audiences andthe communication environment and needs.The ECB publishes a number of studies andreports, such as the Annual Report, whichpresents a review of the ECB’s activities in theprevious year and thus contributes to the ECB’saccountability. The Monthly Bulletin providesregular updates of the ECB’s assessment ofeconomic and monetary developments and thedetailed information underlying its decisions,while the Financial Stability Review assesses thestability of the euro area financial system withregard to its ability to absorb adverse shocks.All members of the Governing Council directlycontribute to enhancing public knowledgeand understanding of the Eurosystem’s tasksand policies by giving testimonies before theEuropean Parliament and national parliaments,delivering public speeches and grantinginterviews to the media. In 2008 the Presidentof the ECB appeared five times before theEuropean Parliament. The members of theExecutive Board of the ECB delivered around300 speeches to a variety of audiences in thecourse of 2008 and granted some 200 interviewsto the media, as well as having articles publishedin journals, magazines and newspapers.The euro area NCBs play an important rolein ensuring the dissemination at the nationallevel of Eurosystem information and messagesto the general public and interested parties.They address a variety of national andregional audiences in their own languages andenvironments.In 2008 the ECB organised 12 seminars aimed atenhancing the knowledge and understanding ofinternational and national media representatives,either on its own or in cooperation with the EUNCBs and the European Journalism Centre. Forthe first time, one of these seminars was organisedon the occasion of an external Governing Councilmeeting, on 4 December in Brussels.The ECB welcomed approximately 14,000visitors to its premises in Frankfurt in 2008.The visitors received first-hand informationin the form of presentations given by ECBexperts and managers. Secondary school anduniversity students, together with professionalsfrom the financial sector, made up the majorityof visitors.All documents published by the ECB and itsvarious activities are presented on the ECB’swebsite. In 2008 the website received 18 millionvisits (20% more than in the previous year),with 126 million pages viewed and 25 milliondocuments downloaded. In 2008 the ECBreplied to around 60,000 enquiries from thepublic requesting information on a number ofissues related to the ECB’s activities, policiesand decisions.The ECB’s communication activities in 2008focused in particular on explaining the eventsand consequences of the global financialturmoil and the measures adopted by theECB and the Eurosystem. A quarter of allpublic speeches delivered by the members ofthe Executive Board and a third of the ECB’spress releases were related to this issue andwere concentrated in the second half of 2008.An increase was witnessed in the numberof opinions issued by the ECB on fiscal andregulatory measures taken by individual EUMember States. There was also a significantrise in the number of requests received fromthe press, the public and visitors to the ECBfor information on the financial turmoil and themeasures taken by the Eurosystem. The openmarket operations section of the ECB’s websitewas enhanced to meet the increased demandfor information: a news feed with informationon monetary policy tender operations wasintroduced, and data on all market operationssince 1999 were published.ECBAnnual Report2008191