MEPs quizzed ECB Vice-President Vitor Constancio on credit flow to businesses and households

29-4-2013 — /europawire.eu/ — MEPs quizzed European Central Bank Vice-President Vitor Constancio on what more can be done to help credit flow to businesses and households, whether austerity is the right recipe, ECB transparency and possible interest rate cuts at Wednesday’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee meeting on ECB activities in 2012.

Mr Constancio began by defending the key mechanisms that the ECB was using to stem the crisis. He also said that EU countries’ structural reforms were yielding positive results.

MEPs from a wide political spectrum replied that the ECB could still do more to make banks lend to the real economy.  Centre-left MEPs and some others from crisis-hit countries said that the ECB should rethink its austerity drive.

Other questions concerned how the ECB used profits from its bond buying programmes, the need for greater transparency, particularly on who benefitted from ECB Emergency Liquidity Assistance (ELA), and on whether the ECB was considering an interest rate cut.

In a nod to “less austerity” campaigners, Mr Constancio accepted that countries could carry out structural reforms more slowly, but nonetheless insisted that they had to continue striving to achieve sustainable debt levels.

Mr Constancio reiterated that the ECB could not force banks to lend and reported that they were showing little appetite for ECB initiatives to provide them with liquidity to lend to the real economy.

On transparency, he said that as MEPs had requested, the ECB was now providing information on the ELA it was allocating to each central bank but that it was not possible to disclose to which individual banks it was then passed on.

Finally, on a possible rate cut, Mr Constancio said that the ECB “stood ready to act in any way it could, especially if the situation deteriorates”.

Gianni Pittella (S&D, IT) will now prepare a draft opinion on the ECB’s activities and the way forward.  This will be presented to the committee in the second half of June.

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