BRUSSELS (MNI) – The European Central Bank’s Governing Council did
not discuss any new non-standard measures at its meeting Thursday
because there is a lack of clearly effective options given the financial
fragmentation of the Eurozone, ECB President Mario Draghi said Thursday
at his monthly press conference.
“We didn’t discuss any other non-standard measures. Quite unusually
for my standards I will also tell you why we didn’t discuss this,”
Draghi said. “We have to have non-standard measures which are effective
and they have to be effective in an area which is fragmented,” he
explained. “It is not obvious” that there are measures that can be
effective in such a highly fragmented environment, he explained.
“I don’t want to elaborate on further non-standard measures at this
point in time,” he said.
Nevertheless the ECB does not think it is running out of options,
at least for fulfilling its primary mandate, Draghi said.
“No, there is no such feeling that we are running low on policy
options,” he said. “We still have all our artillery” to pursue price
stability “in both directions.”
The ECB president credited the central bank’s Long-Term Refinancing
Operations for having prevented a withdrawal of funds from the euro area
as a whole.
“One of remaining benefits of the LTROs is that we have not seen
signs of outflows form the euro area,” Draghi said.
–Brussels newsroom: +324-9522-8374; pkoh@marketnews.com
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