- ECB can only act within it’s mandate
- ECB analysing ways to boost lending to small firms
- Actions limited by independence concerns
- Recovery depends on reforms and stronger governance
Speaking in France
The part I’ve put in bold is something that I’ve been thinking about recently. There’s an awful lot of pressure being put on the ECB to drag Europe out of recession but in my view they are been asked to do the job of national governments, which is against their independence.
Yes they can enact measures to try to force banks to lend but they can only do that with general policy and not at a national level. In my view it’s the member governments who should be getting the pressure to fix things not the ECB.
