VIENNA (MNI) – The ECB’s bond purchase program does not represent
quantitative easing and will have “no consequences” for the direction of
monetary policy, Austria’s central bank assured Thursday.
“The preeminent goal of the completely independent Eurosystem is
and remains the preservation of price stability,” the Austrian National
Bank said in a release announcing its results for 2009.
The Financial Stability Fund created by the Eurozone member states,
the European Commission and the International Monetary Fund was
“important and necessary to prevent the spread of the financial and debt
crisis in the short term and create the possibility for lasting
stability,” Governor Ewald Nowotny explained in the release.
The urgent need now is for credible consolidation measures to cut
the deficit and drive down high debt levels and for lasting structural
and fiscal reform at the national level, the central bank stressed.
At the European level, measures are needed to allow closer
coordination and rapid responses to budget crises, effective budget
surveillance and a tougher application of the Stability and Growth Pact,
the central bank said.
“The clear goal of these structures must be to reinforce stability
in the Eurozone,” it said.
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