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Draghi: Strong agreement for Greece

03/06/2015 16:51
The European Central Bank wants to keep Greece in the euro but there should be a strong agreement, ECB President, Mario Draghi stated, stressing that a strong agreement is one that produces growth, that has social fairness.

“There should be a strong agreement and a strong agreement is one that produces growth, that has social fairness, but that is also fiscally sustainable and addresses the remaining sources or factors of financial instability in the financial sector,” he said. “These would be the components of a strong agreement.”

Speaking at the press conference after the monetary policy decisions, the ECB chief explained the conditions for the ECB to examine the lifting of the T-bills threshold.
Asked about extending collateral, Draghi said:

"There should be a credible perspective for a successful conclusion of the current review. And that would imply by the member countries a disbursement. That would be the condition for the Governing Council to consider, because in any event there is no automaticity for considering a lifting of the T-bills' threshold. And we are not there."

As for the course of negotiations, Draghi said there are proceeding at this point in time, so there is no point on his commenting on various aspects.

QE

With reference to the quantitative easing program implemented by the European Central Bank, Draghi said it is proceeding well and is intended to run until September 2016 or “until there is a sustained adjustment in the path of inflation that is consistent with our aim”.

This assessment is also broadly reflected in the June 2015 Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area, which foresee annual real GDP increasing by 1.5% in 2015, 1.9% in 2016 and 2.0% in 2017.

Compared with the March 2015 ECB staff macroeconomic projections, the projections for real GDP growth over the projection horizon remain virtually unchanged.

Euro area annual HICP inflation was 0.3% in May 2015, up from 0.0% in April and compared with -0.6% in January. This assessment is also broadly reflected in the June 2015 Eurosystem staff macroeconomic projections for the euro area, which foresee annual HICP inflation at 0.3% in 2015, 1.5% in 2016 and 1.8% in 2017.