Brussels, 05/12/2011 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 5 December, the European Central Bank announced that it bought €3.662 billion-worth of sovereign bonds in the week up to 2 December 2011. It bought €8.581bn-worth of bonds the week before.
The ECB says that it has now bought a total of €807 billion-worth of bonds under its special Securities Market Programme, activated in August 2011 and on Tuesday 6 December 2011 it will publish a call for tender for one-week deposits to mop up excess cash. Under the Securities Markets Programme, the ECB and the 17 eurozone nations' central banks can buy up public and private bonds on the secondary markets (not directly from sovereign states). (LC/transl.fl)