LUXEMBOURG (MNI) – European Central Bank Governing Council member
Yves Mersch, who is a leading candidate for a soon-to-be-vacant seat on
the ECB’s Executive Board, Monday criticised the debate over Germany’s
E500 billion surplus in the Eurozone’s Target 2 payment system as
“curious and poorly informed.”
Concerns in Germany that some of the surplus, a statistical
reflection of Germany’s trade surplus with other Eurozone members, is at
risk as a result of the sovereign debt crisis, “makes no sense,” Mersch
said at a press conference, where he presented the annual report of the
Luxembourg Central Bank, which he heads.
The debate would only be relevant in the event of “an explosion of
the Eurozone”, which Mersch said was not on the cards.
At the start of the century, Germany’s and Luxembourg’s figures in
the system were in the same position as Greece is today, he noted.
Luxembourg has a E109 billion surplus in Target 2, the Banque
Centrale du Luxembourg’s report for 2011 shows.
–Brussels Newsroom, +32(04)95228374; pkoh@marketnews.com
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