BERLIN: Wolfgang Schaeuble, German Finance Minister expressed his reservations against the European Central Bank launching a bond buying stimulus programme and praised Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann’s arguments against such moves.
Schaeuble said The ECB can make its decisions independently. But cheap money should not be allowed to dent the reform zeal in some countries. There is no alternative to structural reforms if things are going to improve again. Schaeuble repeated his view that structural reforms are needed in some of the struggling euro zone countries.
ECB President Mario Draghi has thrown the door open for further measures to bolster the euro zone. Draghi has said the ECB would decide early next year whether to take fresh action to revive the region’s economy, adding that the bank’s Governing Council would not need to be unanimous to begin sovereign bond buying.
The ECB has set itself a goal of expanding its balance sheet by buying assets from banks and others in return for cash it hopes will be pushed into the economy by up to 800 billion or even 1.0 trillion euros (1 trillion pounds). A policy of quantitative easing carried out by buying sovereign bonds would help it achieve that target.
