To medlemmer af ECB-rådet, herunder ECB’s direktør Christine Lagarde, indikerer, at ECB er parat til at øge sit QE-opkøbsprogram for yderligere at støtte økonomien. Det kommer, efter at euro-landene ikke kunne enes om at udstede fælles corona-bonds, der kunne mindske rentekløften mellem Italien og Tyskland. ECB henviser netop til, at ECB med nye opkøb vil forsøge at mindske “fragmentationen” på markedet, og dermed menes det store spread mellem Italien og Tyskland. De seneste udmeldinger er således en indirekte kritik af, at de “hårde” finansstrammere som Tyskland modsætter sig fælles bonds, som automatisk vil mindske spreadet.
Uddrag fra ABN Amro:
Global Daily – ECB hints at more QE
ECB View: Executive Board signals it could act again soon – Two members of the ECB’s Executive Board stressed that the central bank was ready to ease monetary policy further.
President Lagarde asserted that the Governing Council ‘is fully prepared to increase the size of its asset purchase programmes and adjust their composition, by as much as necessary and for as long as needed. It will explore all options and all contingencies to support the economy through this shock’.
Meanwhile, Executive Board member Isabel Schnabel made clear that the ECB ‘stands ready to adjust all of its instruments, as appropriate’. This reflected the need to ‘ensure that inflation moves towards its aim in a sustained manner’. Indeed, she noted that ‘uncertainty looms large and downside risks to the medium-term inflation outlook have increased’. In addition, the readiness to act reflected the need ‘to avoid fragmentation that may hamper the smooth transmission of our monetary policy’.
‘Fragmentation’ is ECB-speak for rising country spreads and it is no surprise that this verbal intervention comes in the face of the sharp rise in Italian government bond spreads over recent days.
Furthermore, Ms. Schnabel said that the PEPP was partly designed by the need to reverse the tightening of financial conditions to bring them back to levels that were consistent with achieving the ECB’s inflation aim over the medium term. However, she admitted that despite some success ‘financial conditions today remain tighter than they were in mid-February’.
Finally, the Executive Board member suggested that further easing would take the form of asset purchases rather than deposit rate cuts. Referring to the ECB’s policy choices last month, she explained that ‘a further cut in our main policy rate – the deposit facility rate – would have been unlikely to support sentiment and market functioning at a time when banks’ profitability was already expected to come under additional pressure due to the crisis’. We continue to expect the ECB to increase the size of its PEPP by EUR 500bn later this month.
