Brussels, 17/11/2014 (Agence Europe) - On Monday 17 November, the President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, argued in favour of a long-term vision to allow the eurozone definitively to come out of crisis.
“We have to show the world that we are capable of working together”, said Draghi. He said that 2015 needs to be the year when all actors in the eurozone deploy “a consistent common strategy to bring our economies back on track”. The former Governor of Banca d'Italia added: “there is an urgent need to agree on concrete short-term commitments for structural reforms in the member states, on a consequent application of the Stability and Growth Pact, on the aggregate fiscal stance for the eurozone, on a strategy for investment, and to launch work on a long-term vision to further share sovereignty, ensuring the sustainable and smooth functioning of Economic and Monetary Union”.
Referring to the substantial progress represented by the coming into being of banking union (EUROPE 11190), Draghi said that he hoped that this achievement would be crowned by improving the “borrowing capacity of the Single Resolution Fund”, thereby delivering on the commitment to “establish a credible backstop”, two issues on which the member states must reach an agreement by the end of 2016. He awaits with anticipation the presentation, in the course of 2015, of a “Capital Markets Union” by the European Commission, to reduce financial fragmentation and improve funding to SMEs.
Draghi went into some detail about the actions carried out by the ECB to fulfil its inflation mission: TLTRO operation, massive buy-back of asset-backed securities, etc (EUROPE 11192). He stressed that the recent health check of the banking sector would constitute a “solid basis to restore credit flows” in the future, although he believes that this exercise should have taken account of regulatory differences at national level (EUROPE 11185). (MB)