Brussels, 02/02/2016 (Agence Europe) - The President of the ECB, Mario Draghi, believes that European work on reducing and sharing financial risks must move forward “in parallel”.
“Risk-reduction' and 'risk-sharing' measures are two sides of the same coin and should be pursued in parallel: they are all essential to protecting the stability of the European banking sector”, Draghi told a debate of the European Parliament on Monday 1 February.
Germany, which is extremely unwilling for banking risks to be pooled any more than they are at the moment, wants European action to start by concentrating on reducing financial risks before moving on to the European deposit insurance scheme (EDIS) (see EUROPE 11448). Other countries, such as Italy, share the view of the Frankfurt-based monetary institute. At the Council of the EU, a specific working group has been set in place to tackle the question of the EDIS scheme and the reduction of financial risks at the same time.
Draghi argues that establishing a European deposit insurance scheme would ensure that “confidence in the safety of deposits is equally high in all euro area member states”.
Review in March. The President of the ECB also told the MEPs that his institution intends to review the scope of its accommodative monetary policy in March, once the updated figures on inflation are available (see EUROPE 11473). “Inflation has been below 1% since October 2013”, he observed. The ECB's December forecasts anticipate an increase in prices on an annual basis of 1% for 2016 and 1.6% for 2017. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)