The president of the European Central Bank (ECB), Mr Wim Duisenberg, has been coming under extraordinary criticism over the past few weeks as the euro has continued to plummet against the dollar.
In very marked contrast to the treatment of the head of the Bundesbank, Mr Hans Tietmeyer, and indeed to the by now almost legendary US Federal Reserve chief, Mr Alan Greenspan, Mr Duisenberg must feel more than slightly put upon.
Over the past week there have been rumours that he is about to resign, the German mass circulation paper Das Bild has called for him to go and US fund managers have questioned his judgment.
The problem for Mr Duisenberg is that nearly all of his critics are looking at the euro's problems in a very different light. The markets are aggrieved that there is no clear sense of direction coming from the ECB in Frankfurt about the currency. They point to the conflicting statements emanating from Mr Duisenberg and many of his key directors. The lack of co-ordination with finance ministers is also a problem.
For the German public the problem is very different. It had been told to look forward to a strong euro - it was to be a currency that would match the mighty deutschmark and would even rival the US dollar as a reserve currency.
Instead, it got a currency that has weakened by 13 per cent since its inauguration just six months ago and now looks set to fall below parity against the dollar.
The Germans had a very strong psychological attachment to the deutschmark and a fear of weak currencies - springing partly from their historical experience of hyper-inflation. The prospect of replacing it with a weaker version is not popular.
But the opposite is true of the French. Despite its "franc fort" policy, the establishment there has almost always favoured a weak franc against the dollar in order to boost competitiveness.
The real problem confronting Mr Duisenberg is that he is faced with a divergent economic picture across the euro zone. Germany and Italy look to be very close to recession, while Ireland and Finland are booming. And, as some cynics point out, it is probably the decision to admit Italy to the euro zone which is at the root of the current problems. They point out that if Germany were the only very weak economy and there was no blurring of boundaries around the size of the Italian budget deficit and how it fitted in with EU rules, the euro would probably be stronger than it is.
There are even conspiracy theorists who hold that the French are doing their utmost to undermine Mr Duisenberg to have their own man, Mr Jean Claude Trichet, appointed as his successor all the sooner. And certainly there is enough in the story to see where they get their ammunition.
A cloud has hung over Mr Duisenberg from the very beginning. It was his appointment which led to the longest lunch in the history of European summits which are themselves not known for rushed meals. And at the end came a compromise which looked shaky from the start. Mr Duisenberg was to be appointed for his full eight-year term, but would voluntarily step aside after just four years, allowing the French central bank governor Mr Trichet his place at the top table. In the meantime, another French man Mr Christian Noyer was to be deputy president of the ECB. But almost as soon as the compromise was announced Mr Duisenberg said that he might not resign on schedule in 2002, while the French insisted he would.
The real problems, however, for Mr Duisenberg is that he has 17 governors siting around the table, all ostensibly considering the pan euro-zone picture, but many actually concerned about domestic interests. And because they have not either learned to speak with one voice - or had such a stricture forced on them - they all come out with different opinions, sometimes clearly playing to a domestic audience. Some would argue that Mr Duisenberg simply needs to stamp his authority on the governors, insisting they submit texts of speeches to be made in advance if necessary. Of course they do not need to echo one another's sentiments exactly. After all, the different Bundesbank board-members used frequently to disagree. But that was more about economic policy than regional bias and the market had no doubt but that Mr Tietmeyer was boss. The same is also true of the Fed, with Mr Greenspan clearly in charge.
All the governors should probably develop an answer to questions about the euro along the lines of that already being advanced by Mr Welteke. The idea is to point out that there is not an exchange-rate target, that the fall in the currency will not have an inflationary effect and thus does not need a policy response. They could also add that over the medium term there is a good chance that the currency will recover as the economic fundamentals in the zone turn up.
After all, for many euro zone members the decline in the currency is good news. The weaker currency will help boost the competitiveness of much heavy industry in Germany and Italy which is export dependent. That in itself should ultimately boost the currency as European growth catches up with the US.
