FRANKFURT: Following are comments by European Central Bank President Mario Draghi at a news conference after the bank left its benchmark interest rate at 0.75 percent on Thursday.
ECB CONSIDERING FURTHER NON-STANDARD MEASURES
"The governing council, within its mandate to maintain price stability over the medium term and in observance of its independence in determining monetary policy, may undertake outright open market operations of a size adequate to reach its objective. Furthermore the governing council will consider further non-standard monetary policy measures according to what is required to repair monetary policy transmission.
"In the coming weeks we will design the appropriate modalities for such policy measures."
ON WEIDMANN AND BUNDESBANK OPPOSITION TO BOND BUYING
"The decision to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro as a stable currency has been unanimous. It's clear and it's known that Mr Weidmann and the Bundesbank have their reservations about the programme of buying bonds. The idea is we now have the guidance, the monetary policy committee, the risk committee and the markets committee will work on this guidance and then (we) will take a final decision and the votes will be counted.
"I think that's a fair representation of the discussion today."
RATE CUT DISCUSSED
"We have discussed (the) possibility (of a) reduction in interest rates but the governing council in its entirety decided this was not the time."
BOND BUYING TO BE AT SHORT END OF YIELD CURVE
(A new bond buying programme) differs from the previous program. ... we have explicit conditionality here as a necessary condition ... there is full transparency about the countries where this will be undertaken and about the amounts...
"This effort will be focused on the shorter part of the yield curve."
"It is too early to say whether any bond buying will be sterilised we will act within our mandate."
GOVTS MUST BE READY TO ACTIVATE ESM/EFSF IN BOND MKT
"First of all governments need to go to the EFSF; the ECB cannot replace governments."
"As implementation takes time and financial markets only adjust once success becomes clearly visible, governments must stand ready to activate the ESM/EFSF in the bond market when exceptional financial market circumstances and risks to financial stability exist, with strict and effective conditionality in line with the established guidelines."
UP TO COUNTRIES TO DECIDE ON EFSF HELP
"We didn't discuss specific countries' situation. It's true that ... Spain like other countries have achieved significant progress ... including fiscal consolidation. It's up to the relevant countries to decide whether they need and they want the help of the EFSF."
COULD ESM BE GRANTED A BANKING LICENCE?
"The current design of the ESM does not allow it to be recognised as a suitable counterparty ... What we have today is a legal opinion by the ECB issued five months ago saying that no, it's not suitable as a counterparty."
ASKED ABOUT OTHER POLICY OPTIONS
"There is no need to be specific but if you go back to various LTROs that we have done, there is also a discussion about the collateral framework ... there is a list of various options ... that will be studied, explored, reviewed and utilised possibly if needed for a formal decision."
EURO IRREVERSIBLE
"The euro is irreversible."
"There is not one word of these remarks that had not been discussed in previous governing councils."
COUNTRIES NEED TO BOOST COMPETITIVENESS
"Further decisive and urgent steps need to be taken (by governments) to improve competitiveness."
EURO ZONE ECONOMY TO RECOVER ONLY GRADUALLY
"We expect the euro area economy to recover only very gradually."
INFLATION TO DECLINE
"As we said a month ago, inflation should decline further and be below 2 percent again in 2013. Consistent with this picture, the underlying pace of monetary expansion remains subdued.
"Inflation expectations for the euro zone continue to be firmly anchored. At the same time, economic growth in the euro area remains weak.
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