On December 8, 2011, the ECB announced that it would loan 489.2 billion euros (c. $640 billion) at 1% interest to 523 E.U. banks for a three-year term. Carl Weinberg, chief economist at a consulting firm, said that by making the move, the ECB had “shown a path toward averting catastrophic collapse in Europe.” The move has been likened to that of the Federal Reserve after the collapse of Lehman Brothers in 2008. It was hoped that the E.U. banks would use the money to buy state bonds—particularly those of Spain and Italy, which were not able to “directly tap” ECB funds. According to Investor’s Business Daily, however, early signs pointed to bank declining to purchase the riskier debt. While understandable given Angela Merkel’s objections to the ECB serving as a backdoor bailout of profligate states over their heads in debt, the ECB’s refusal to put conditions on how the loans could be used may have undercut the central bank’s effort to relieve bank liquidity (and state debt) problems in the E.U.
The full essay is at "Essays on the E.U. Political Economy," available at Amazon.
