31/05/2010 (Agence Europe) - The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Jean-Claude Trichet has appealed for a genuine “budgetary federation” to increase surveillance of EU member states' public finance, which have both individual and collegial responsibility in this area. In an interview to the French newspaper Le Monde on 1 June, Mr Trichet said that “we are a monetary federation. We now need to have the equivalent of a budgetary federation in terms of control and surveillance of the application of public finance policies”. He also pointed out that in 2004 and 2005, France, Italy and Germany had “given a very bad example as both managers and those responsible for their own budgetary policy, and as members of Eurogroup, and therefore essential actors in the surveillance of the budgetary situation of each country”. (A.B./transl.fl)