The leaders of France and Spain expressed their support for the idea of the European Central Bank buying up sovereign debt, in order to bring down borrowing costs for the eurozone's weaker economies.
"The ECB's mandate includes price stability and monetary policy", French President François Hollande said, following a meeting with Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy in Madrid. "When you see such wide gaps in yields, that could be a justification of an intervention in the name of monetary policy." Rajoy echoed Hollande's comments, and said that it was important to "bring an end to this situation in which some countries finance themselves at zero per cent and other countries finance themselves at very high prices".
Investors demanded more than 6.6 per cent interest to hold Spanish 10-year bonds on Thursday, while similar German debt was going for just 1.32 per cent. Meanwhile, the head of one of the smallest economies in the eurozone expressed doubt about the future of the common currency. "I see a 50 per cent possibility of the eurozone splitting and a 50 per cent chance of its survival", Slovakian Prime Minister Robert Fico said. He also said that calls for closer integration would lead either to the "strengthening of the European Union and the eurozone or its split".
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© Deutsche Welle
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