ECB's Weidmann: Criticism of ECB Policy May be Due to Blurring of Monetary & Fiscal Bounds
Speaking in an interview with Die Welt and reported via Reuters, ECB governing council member and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann noted the following:
Criticism of ECB policy may be because some measures blurred boundaries between monetary and fiscal policy
The Governing Council agreed monetary policy needed to be expansive in the current environment
The vehemence of the debate perhaps also stems from some of the measures
we have taken so far having blurred the boundaries between monetary and
fiscal policy and having redistributed government liability risks via
central bank balance sheets
ECB Council had to be careful not to overstep the boundary to fiscal
policy and that was why the bank's latest government bond purchase
programme foresaw very limited sharing of liability
Nonetheless I still think purchases of government bonds in the euro zone
are problematic because the central banks become the biggest creditors
of their states
We should let what has been decided take effect and not start
speculating about further measures yet again - that applies to interest
rates too
Do not approve of discussions about "helicopter money", and that it was not on the table for the ECB's Governing Council.