Bundesbank President Mr Ernst Welteke was quoted today re-iterating the European Central Bank had an interest in a strong euro and that intervention was always a tool available to central banks.
In interviews with Belgian newspapers, conducted yesterday during a visit to Brussels, Mr Welteke also said the US economic slowdown had had a bigger impact than expected on Europe.
Separately, he played down the potential risk to inflation in Germany from the rounding of prices linked to the introduction of euro notes and coins.
L'Echonewspaper reported Mr Welteke as saying that economic circumstances now were different from last September, when the ECB first intervened on currency markets, but the ECB's position was not that different.
A strong euro would make the maintenance of price stability in the euro zone easier, Mr Welteke was quoted as saying.
"Intervention is a tool, but central bankers do not speak about it", he was quoted as saying by De Financieel Economische Tijd.
Separately, Mr Welteke said there was no statistical evidence that rounding up of prices ahead of the introduction of euro notes and coins was fuelling German inflation. German magazine Focus recently published the results of a survey indicating prices for some goods were rising rapidly due to mark ups ahead of the conversion.
Mr Welteke cited the example of a price of 1.99 marks, noting when converted at the locking rate fixed for the mark this was euro 1.02. He said the Bundesbank expects such prices to be rounded down rather than up.
The European Banking Federation estimated earlier this week that rounding up of prices could add between 0.4 and 1.0 percentage point to euro zone inflation over the next 12 months.