FRANKFURT (MNI) – The European Central Bank’s bond buying programme
is limited both in terms of scope and duration, ECB Governing Council
member Yves Mersch said Thursday during a live debate on German
television ZDF.

The head of the Bank of Luxembourg also fiercely defended the ECB’s
new liquidity support measures as the right policy to address real risks
of a credit crunch in the Eurozone as banks confront rising pressure
from the regulatory side to rebuild their capital.

“We are not buying infinite amounts of government bonds. That is
not the job of the central bank,” Mersch said. “It has been said
repeatedly that [the bond purchasing program] is limited in scope and
time.”

“What we are doing is offering a bridge until necessary measures in
Europe are in place,” Mersch added. “We now have the rescue fund [the
European Financial Stability Facility]; we have the fire brigade, and it
has a hose.” However, the hose “still does not have water,” he conceded.

Mersch’s admission that the EFSF is still lacking the water needed
to fight fires suggests that while Mersch sees a time limit to the ECB’s
bond buying, an end to the so-called Securities Markets Program may yet
take time — perhaps until liquidity is finally flowing from another
source.

Mersch also said that the idea of a banking licence for the EFSF
that would allow it to borrow from the ECB is not feasible at the
present time. Nor are eurobonds, he added. Such jointly issued
sovereigns would be only be possible “when every country has a triple-A
rating,” he argued.

Facing criticism of the ECB’s aggressive new liquidity measures,
Mersch fiercely defended the central bank’s policies, pointing to
recapitalization pressures on banks from the regulatory side that could
intensify the risk of a credit crunch and even push Europe back into a
severe recession.

“The aim [of liquidity policies] is not to allow banks to make
profit, but to enable them to continue providing the real economy with
credit,” Mersch said.

“We fear a credit crunch,” he warned. “We cannot allow this to
happen,” he added, stressing the grave consequences it could have for
economic growth. Consequently, banks must not be overburdened and
recapitalization requirements — while absolutely necessary — are
nonetheless a burden, Mersch cautioned.

Policy-makers are so fearful of the potential impact the new
capital requirements could have on bank lending that they are pushing
regulators to alter the rules in a way that will dissuade banks from
shrinking their balance sheets to reach the new targets, well-placed
Eurosystem sources told MNI.

Mersch also voiced some criticism of Germany as well as of the
recent Franco-German tendency to monopolize power in the Eurozone.

Germany should not expect other Eurozone countries to regain
competitiveness within one year, he said, noting that many countries
have taken necessary and painful steps but that the adjustment process
will take time.

“I would like to recall that Germany too lost much competitiveness
after reunification and took years to regain it,” Mersch said.

He argued that Germany’s European partners had also made financial
contributions to help Germany regain competitiveness, since the
Bundesbank’s policies at the time had forced high interest rates on
neighbouring countries, paving the way for Germany’s adjustment.

Mersch warned that Germany and France must not try to control the
union but allow for a legitimate transfer of power to European
institutions.

He cited the example of the future rescue fund, the European
Stability Mechanism, for which it was decided at the latest EU summit
that “only the big countries have a veto and veto powers of small
countries should be taken away.”

“I think this is a questionable path that we should not follow,”
Mersch warned. “If we transfer sovereignty to the European level, it
must be transferred to institutions that are able to carry out the tasks
and are democratically legitimized.”

–Frankfurt newsroom +49 69 72 01 42; e-mail: jtreeck@marketnews.com

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