DUBLIN: The European Central Bank is getting ready to announce details of the unprecedented programme of government bond-buying it hopes will lift the bloc out of recession and a vortex of falling prices.
Convening in Cyprus, President Mario Draghi and his 25-member governing council will be signing-off on plans to purchase €60bn-a-month in government and private sector assets first announced in January.
The move came after the ECB president fought a protracted struggle with the eurozone’s creditor bloc to unleash a wave of stimulus and rescue the bloc from deflation.
Thursday’s meeting of the ECB is expected to iron out a number of the technicalities involved in the package, such as the proportion of risk which will be shared by the eurozone’s national central banks and the ECB.
Mr Draghi is also likely to be quizzed on the open-ended nature of the asset purchases. Speaking earlier this year, the Italian said the intervention would run to September 2016, or until the ECB saw “a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation” towards its 2pc target rate.
