Reuters: ECB to hold fire on growth steps in crisis-hit Spain

03 May 2012

The European Central Bank will resist pressure to do more to fight the eurozone crisis, holding fire despite calls to restart its bond-buying programme to help austerity-hit Spain.

Financial markets are clamouring for the ECB to step up its efforts to fight the two-year crisis by buying the sovereign bonds of Spain, which is in recession and is struggling to convince some of its people of the need for further austerity. But ECB policymakers are more likely to pay homage to the country's drive to cut costs than to signal any new policy action like restarting the bond-buy programme, or Securities Markets Programme (SMP). The bank has left the plan dormant for the last seven weeks despite a rise in Spanish yields to 6 per cent.

ECB President, Mario Draghi, faces resistance from Germany's powerful Bundesbank to any potential interest rate cut or a reactivation of the bond-buy programme, which the central bank could use to lower Spanish bond yields.

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