LUXEMBOURG (MNI) – The European Central Bank will continue to
unwind the non-standard measures that it adopted to counter the
financial crisis, ECB Governing Council member Yves Mersch said
Thursday.
Monetary authorities have “very clearly stated” that “all those
non-standard measures…are temporary,” he said at a press conference in
which he presented the Financial Stability Review of the Bank of
Luxembourg, which he heads.
“We are committed to a gradual exit from this type of measures,”
Mersch said. “We will continue this gradual exit at an appropriate pace
in view of the incoming news.”
Mersch noted the “complete separation principle” with regard to
non-standard measures on one hand and monetary policy on the other.
“We have a monetary policy for the Eurozone at large,” he asserted.
“We operate for the whole transmission mechanism within the Eurozone.
The restructuring of banks is not the task or objective of the central
bank.”
The ECB has “taken certain measures to ensure the proper
functioning of the transmission mechanism within the Eurozone.”
With respect to fiscal consolidation programs undertaken to support
troubled Eurozone member states, Mersch affirmed that “as long as [a
program] is being implemented and being monitored” there is “no reason
to deviate” from the program. He thus implicitly dismissed debt
restructuring as a solution.
“We have our analysis of the measures that have to be taken…and
as long as the program has been approved and is being implemented there
is no reason for us to deviate,” he said.
–Frankfurt bureau tel.: +49-69-720142. Email: frankfurt@marketnews.com
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