Ladies and gentlemen, let me, on behalf of the Per Jacobsson Foundation, welcome everybody to this year’s lecture. We are enormously privileged to have Michel Camdessus speak to us.
I don’t think it would be useful, necessary, or a best use of time to spend a long time introducing Michel Camdessus to this audience. He is well known to each and everybody in the room. He has served at least three or four functions, any one of which alone would merit an invitation to deliver this lecture. As you all know, he has been, among other things, Chairman of the Paris Club, head of the French Treasury, Governor of the Banque de France, and, of course, he was appointed for an unprecedented three terms as Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund. I don’t think we could have anybody better placed to speak to us on the subject of this afternoon’s lecture, on which I know he has both thought deeply and felt passionately.