ECB heads for the rocks!

This blog has long warned that it is the bad debts of the ECB that will eventually have to be divvied out amongst the members of the eurozone that could bring the curtain down on the growing nightmare of the failed European Monetary Union.

Open Europe, in its daily press briefing email, has two items suggesting this point may soon be reached. The first is an article in the Wall Street Journal linked here,from which comes this quote:

By threatening to stop providing Greek banks with liquidity in the event of a rollover, the ECB has interfered with this decision and overstepped its mandate. It has exposed itself to the suspicion that its true motive is to avoid losing money on its stock of Greek bonds. Clemens Fuest, Research Director,Oxford University Centre for Business Taxation.

The second is taken from the Open Europe briefing itself, being a translation from the French original in La Tribune:

In an op-ed in French financial daily La Tribune, French Economics Professor Florin Aftalion quotes Open Europe’s finding that the ECB currently holds €190bn of Greek debt, while its capital and reserves amount to only €82bn. He argues: “When it agreed to participate in Greece’s temporary bail-out during the spring of 2010, the ECB bowed to political pressure. It made a fatal mistake and seriously betrayed the trust placed in it, while taking excessive risks for which European taxpayers will have to foot the bill.”