LUXEMBOURG (MNI) – Whether or not Spain will call on the EU/IMF
fiscal stabilization fund is a decision that will be taken “at the
executive level” and for now it appears that Spanish officials see no
need for such aid, European Central Bank Governing Council member Yves
Mersch said Wednesday.
“According to declarations I have heard from Spain, they don’t seem
to think they need the program,” Mersch said at a press conference in
which he presented the annual report of the Central Bank of Luxembourg,
which he heads.
He also said that medium- to long-term inflation expectations are
“totally in line with our definition of price stability,” which is close
to but below 2%.
Asked whether he could ever envision a conflict between the ECB’s
price stability mandate and financial stability in the Eurozone, Mersch
replied: “We have one objective – price stability.”
He said the ECB’s non-standard measures — which include an array
of supplementary liquidity operations and, more recently, a sovereign
bond purchasing program — are “temporary.”
Asked whether the results of stress tests of European banks should
be published, Mersch said it was too early to say.
He also said Greece was doing what it had promised to do to cut its
budget deficit.
–Paris newsroom, +331-42-71-55-40; stephen@marketnews.com
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