According to calculations of the main German financial institutions, the ECB purchased bonds in Italy and Spain with an estimated value of 4 billion. The ECB announces that it will buy Spanish and Italian public debt. The European Central Bank (ECB) acquired this Monday up to 1.5 billion euros in Spanish public debt, published by the newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (FAZ) after consultation with several experts from German banks. According to the calculations of the major financial institutions, the ECB bought sovereign bonds in Italy and Spain by an estimated average of 4,000 million euros, a figure that an economist for Societe Generale (SG) raises to more than 5 billion euros. Of this total amount, up to 1,500 million euros correspond to debt securities Spaniards and the rest to Italian bonds, according to the average of estimates. For its part, the ECB hasn’t done for the moment no official communication from the magnitude of his performance, following his usual practice, by what you will have to wait at least until next Monday, when the Monetary Authority publicly update its programme of buying government debt balance.
Intervention by the ECB on the secondary market was clearly lower the risk premium of the sovereign bonds of both countries, according to the German Rotary. In particular, the interest of the debt securities to ten years in Italy and Spain fell around 1.5 percent (or 150 points), reaching slightly over 5 per cent in both cases, pointing the face. The economic daily Handelsblatt said in its edition of today that four members of the ECB opposed the purchase: the Governor of the German Central Bank (Bundesbank), Jens Weidmann; The Economist j of the ECB, the German Jurgen Stark; the Governor of the Dutch Central Bank, Klaas Knot, and the representative of the Central Bank of Luxembourg. The general opinion among German experts and commentators is contrary to the acquisition of public debt of the countries in the area of the Euro with financial problems. Among these critical views was that of Holger Stelzner, on the cover of the face, which accuses the President of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, after finishing with the independence of the institution and of fostering the fiscal irresponsibility of the countries members of the euro zone.
