Mario Draghi steps down as head of the ECB at the end of October and the field of candidates to replace him has narrowed. Here are the leading contenders to take over from “Super Mario”

Last year was great for the eurozone economy, with GDP expanding by 2.3%. That is above the zone’s potential growth rate.

Banks based in Britain will lose access to EU markets after Brexit unless the country remains in the broader European trading group that includes nations such as Norway, the head of Germany’s Bundesbank warned yesterday.

The European Central Bank is ready to act quickly to boost anaemic inflation in the Eurozone, its president said yesterday, offering the strongest hint yet that the bank will unveil fresh stimulus measures at its December 3 meeting.

As European Central Bank policy makers gather for their first meeting of 2015, the backdrop is a 0.2% annual drop in consumer prices, the first in more than five years.

European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said he can not exclude the risk of deflation in the eurozone, in a sign that the likelihood of large-scale quantitative easing is increasing.

Mario Draghi has one month to win consensus on quantitative easing by reassuring those worried that the European Central Bank risks losing its own money.

Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann said there is no need for the ECB to expand monetary stimulus, and argued that sovereign-debt purchases are problematic even if slumping oil prices cause deflation.

Purchasing government debt comes with legal obstacles and it is no panacea for the eurozone economy, said ECB governing council member Jens Weidmann.

Bundesbank president Jens Weidmann has said the room that governments have to stimulate growth through fiscal policy is often more limited than commonly believed.

Germany’s top finance officials warned investors against prematurely celebrating an overhaul of Europe’s economies four years after they plunged into crisis.

European Central Bank president Mario Draghi said a further appreciation of the euro would trigger more monetary stimulus in his strongest warning yet about the region’s rising currency.

ECB president Mario Draghi said policymakers are ready to add to stimulus if the outlook for prices deteriorates, although there are currently no signs of deflation in the eurozone.

Why is the euro so strong, when the eurozone’s economy is barely out of recession?

The European Central Bank cannot solve the eurozone crisis, Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann told economists yesterday, pressing the bloc’s governments to get their economies in shape and tighten their fiscal rules.

Germany’s top court probably won’t intervene in the ECB’s plan to buy bonds of crisis-torn countries, in line with previous cases involving the country’s integration with the EU.

There was a slight nervousness in bond markets yesterday after the ultra-conservative Bundesbank president suggested the promissory note deal may breach ECB rules.

ECB president Mario Draghi yesterday defended his bond-purchase plan and took a swipe at Germany’s Bundesbank, saying choosing to do nothing would have been dangerous.

Germany’s finance minister has said a new Europe-wide banking supervisor is unlikely to be up and running in the new year, dampening hopes that stressed banks could soon tap available rescue funds directly.

German central bank chief Jens Weidmann’s reported threat to resign has piled pressure on ECB president Mario Draghi to mollify opposition to a new bond-buying plan without tying it up in so many knots it is rendered ineffective.

Reports today suggest the head of the German Central Bank has threatened to resign in a row with the ECB over measures proposed to deal with the eurozone crisis.

A successful Italian bond auction yesterday pointed to confidence among investors the ECB will keep its word and take strong enough measures to get a grip on the eurozone’s debt crisis.

The ECB must employ “exceptional measures” at times to fulfil its mandate of delivering stable prices, its president Mario Draghi wrote in an opinion piece aimed at calming German angst about the bank’s policy course.

The head of Germany’s Bundesbank stepped up his opposition to the European Central Bank’s latest moves to battle the eurozone’s debt crisis yesterday, saying that plans to buy bonds risked becoming a drug on which governments would get hooked.

ECB president Mario Draghi said it may wade forcefully into bond markets in tandem with Europe’s rescue fund, stepping up its crisis response despite the reservations of Germany’s Bundesbank.

THE European Central Bank is thinking the unthinkable to save the euro, including resuming its bond-buying programme and possibly even pursuing quantitative easing — in effect printing money.

The chief of the Bundesbank is an austerity advocate, but his calls for further action, as well as the move to closer fiscal union, have seen him compared to the German leader who preceded Hitler, writes Kyran Fitzgerald

ECB governing council member Jens Weidmann says common euro bonds or joint debt liability could be established in the currency area in the context of a true fiscal union.

The European Central Bank (ECB) has made €530bn in low-interest loans to banks in the second round of a massive credit infusion that has been credited with easing the eurozone debt crisis.

SPAIN’S short-term borrowing costs hit a 14-year high yesterday as political uncertainty about a solution to the eurozone’s debt crisis punished another southern European country.

EUROPEAN Central Bank council member Jens Weidmann said the ECB cannot bail out governments by printing money.

It may be necessary to write off some of Greece’s debt, but that it is not an overall solution to the country’s economic problems, the head of Germany’s central bank has said.