FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank spent 22 billion euros ($31 billion) on government debt last week, it said on Monday, reactivating its bond-buy plan to try to halt the spread of the euro zone debt crisis to Spain and Italy.
The amount purchased was the most the ECB has spent in any week since it began the bond-buying programme in May of last year, surpassing the 16.5 billion euros it spent in the first week of the plan, when it targetted Greek government bonds.
The ECB reactivated the programme after leaving it dormant for 19 weeks, and despite opposition from a four-man group on its policymaking Governing Council, led by Germans Jens Weidmann and Juergen Stark.
The central bank began buying bonds again directly after a Governing Council meeting on Aug. 4, ECB President Jean-Claude Trichet said, with traders saying it had been on the market for Irish and Portuguese bonds.
However, as the purchases take 2-3 days to settle, those transactions, as well as those made at the start of last week show up in the data published this Monday.
Last week, the ECB said it would "actively implement" the bond-buying plan to fight the debt crisis, signalling it would buy Spanish and Italian government bonds to halt financial market contagion.
The central bank also said no bonds held under the programme matured last week. Thus, when rounded to the nearest half billion, the overall value of the purchases -- albeit not marked to market -- rose to 96 billion euros.?Reuters
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