Off the wire
• Nu Skin confident in China future growth  • UN calls for gender equality ahead Int'l Women's Day  • Nigeria's U20 team arrives in Dakar for AYC soccer tourney  • Manchester Int'l Festival announces world premieres at 2015 event  • Palestine prepares to join WTO: official  • Leaked intelligence documents threaten S. Africa's security: official  • Iceland sees trade surplus decrease in Feb.  • Xinhua world news summary at 1530 GMT, March 5  • Italy's GDP posts zero growth in Q4 2014  • Shanxi beat Beijing to win 3rd straight WCBA title  
You are here: 　 Home

Roundup: ECB not to allow Greece to raise limit on issuance of short-term debt: Draghi

Xinhua, March 6, 2015 Adjust font size:

The European Central Bank (ECB) President Mario Draghi said on Thursday that ECB will not allow Greece to raise its limit on the issuance of short-term debt, adding that Greece will neither be eligible under current ECB rules to participate in the QE program.

Replying to questions at the press conference after a meeting of ECB Governing Council in the Cypriot capital of Nicosia, Draghi said, "The ECB is a rule-based institution, it is not a political institution to make political decisions."

The exclusion, resulting from Greece's decision to opt out of its bailout adjustment program without obtaining a positive review of its international lenders, means that Athens is left with almost zero options to raise money for funding its government operation and for impending repayment of maturing debt.

Greece has reached its 15-billion-euro cap on the issuance of Treasury bills and Draghi's statement makes it clear that the ECB will not permit a higher limit.

Draghi said earlier at the press conference that ECB will purchase Eurogroup member countries bonds until at least September, 2016 worth an estimated 1.1 trillion euros.

"We will on 9 March, 2015, start purchasing euro-dominated public sector securities in the secondary market. We will also continue to purchase asset backed securities and covered bonds which we started last year," Draghi told journalists at a press conference at the end of the ECB meeting.

The purchase of sovereign debt will start in a bid to accelerate growth in the euro zone which started picking up after Draghi first presented his program on January 22.

He said the start of the program would prove to be supportive of the emerging growth.

Central Banks of the euro zone countries will buy 60 billion euros worth of bonds each month for the duration of the program, and also some private sector assets.

Draghi's statement on the start of the QE program came after ECB announced that it Governing Council decided to leave interest rates unchanged at their record lows. Endit