‘ECB must defy Merkel’
German chancellor Angela Merkel is resisting calls for the ECB to take on a bigger crisis-fighting role despite a stampede out of European government bonds and a failed bond auction last week in Germany, viewed as Europe’s safest haven.
Mr Bofinger, one of the five “wise men” who formally advise the German government on the economy, wants Europe to start issuing joint eurozone bonds and the ECB to buy large amounts of sovereign bonds without sterilising the purchases — effectively the same type of quantitative easing undertaken by the US and British central banks.
