ECB’s Christian Noyer says no decision made on quantitative easing

The European Central Bank should cap the size of any government bond purchase plan it embarks on so as not to crowd out private sector investors, said ECB Governing Council member Christian Noyer.

The ECB Governing Council gathers on January 22 for its next policy meeting and could then decide to start printing money to buy large amounts of government bonds, a step also known as quantitative easing, to prevent deflation from taking hold.

Mr Noyer told German business daily Handelsblatt that nothing had been decided and that the debate was “not only about whether we should do it at all but also about when we should do it”.