BRUSSELS (MNI) – EU commissioners are debating whether the mandate
of the European Central Bank should be extended from price stability to
include growth and jobs, a spokesman for the European Commission said on
Monday.
“This debate is happening,” the spokesman confirmed when asked
about public comments made by the EU’s Employment and Social Affairs
Commissioner, Laszlo Andor, who said he favoured an expanded role for
the Eurozone’s central bank.
There is no consensus view on the issue in the Commission, the
spokesman was quick to emphasise.
“Commissioners are politicians and all have duties to express their
own political views,” he said of Andor’s comments.
EU Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso’s view is clear, the
spokesman said. “The president’s view is that the ECB has a clear role
to act on price stability, inflation, and to ensure the financial
stability of the EU as a whole and the euro area in particular,” he
said. “The central bank has at its disposal several tools and
instruments. It is up to the board to decide when and how to implement
them.”
The ECB’s rigid mandate has come into focus because a significant
increase of the central bank’s intervention in sovereign bond markets is
seen by many observers and some governments, particularly France, as the
only credible way to halt the spread of the debt crisis.
However, the ECB itself, along with Germany, Europe’s biggest
economy, are adamantly opposed to greater central bank involvement,
fearing it would undermine the institution’s credibility, independence
and incentives for highly indebted countries to change their ways.
–Brussels bureau, +324-952-28374; pkoh@marketnews.com
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