He says he is Mr Euro - the only man in Europe who can speak with authority about the single currency - but as he faced the media at the ECB's headquarters in Frankfurt yesterday, Mr Wim Duisenberg was in no mood to take responsibility for the euro's grim performance on the foreign-exchange markets.

"I am not prepared to take any blame for the decline of the euro, even if the markets think so. I don't share that blame," he said.

The ECB president blames almost everyone else - the markets, the politicians and the media - for a decline in the currency that he plainly regards as inexplicable.

According to Mr Duisenberg's analysis, the markets are behaving irrationally by failing to acknowledge the splendid job he and his fellow central bankers have done in keeping inflation low. The media have undermined popular confidence in the euro by giving Europe's citizens the impression that their new currency is a weak one.

As for the politicians, the best thing they could do from Mr Duisenberg's point of view is to refrain from talking about the currency altogether - as he made clear when he spoke about recent comments by the German chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schroder and the French finance minister, Mr Laurent Fabius.

"I have seen them, I have listened to them. These statements were, on the one hand, not unwelcome and on the other, they were not welcome," he said.

Mr Duisenberg wants Europe's politicians and central bankers to speak - if they must speak at all - like a choir with one voice. And that voice is his.

Beaming at his vice-president, Mr Christian Noyer (to whom he refers simply as "Noyer"), Mr Duisenberg praised the Frenchman's performance at a meeting of euro-zone finance ministers in Brussels this week. Although Mr Duisenberg was in Basle that day, both men succeeded in singing precisely the same tune - much to the president's satisfaction.

Mr Noyer looked a trifle embarrassed as he accepted this compliment, like a schoolboy singled out from his classmates for praise from a rather fierce teacher.

For his part, Mr Duisenberg put on a convincing display of sang-froid in the face of the euro's continuing fall and he shrugged off suggestions that he should resign. As he spoke about the "violence and volatility" of the markets in recent weeks, he summed up his strategy in three words.

"Let's stay calm," he said.