The European Central Bank should do more to solve the eurozone debt crisis, Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn said in an interview on German public television on Tuesday.
The ECB’s primary task was to “conduct monetary policy” and “fight inflation. But we’re not facing inflation. What we’re confronted with is speculation,” Asselborn told ARD television.
ECB chief Mario Draghi last week pledged that the central bank was “ready to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro,” sparking a frenzy of speculation that the ECB was about to restart a contested bond-buying programme to ease tension on the debt markets.
But the remarks immediately came under fire in Germany and from the Bundesbank in particular, which strongly opposes such measures.
Nevertheless, Draghi’s comments should not be treated with contempt, Asselborn said.
The ECB was after all the best weapon Europe had for fighting the crisis, Asselborn said.
“The people who sit in the bank aren’t a bunch of financial jugglers,” the minister said.
