ECB barely raised purchases last week even before redemptions

FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank barely nudged up its emergency bond purchases last week even before subtracting debt that matured over that period, data showed on Tuesday, raising fresh questions about the ECB's resolve to stem a bond market selloff.

The ECB bought 18.2 billion euros worth of bonds on a gross basis - that is, before taking out redemptions - under its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme last week, the data showed.

The ECB has insisted that smaller-than-expected net purchases in the past two weeks were due to many bonds maturing and leaving its balance sheet.

But Tuesday's data showed even gross purchases were below the historical average and represented a mere 7.7% increase from the week before.

The data was likely to fuel fresh doubts about whether a divided ECB was prepared to pin borrowing costs at record lows for governments that have been taking on unprecedented amounts of debt to keep a pandemic-ravaged euro zone economy afloat.

ECB policymakers appeared divided on the question of greater market intervention ahead of their policy meeting on Thursday.

Dovish ECB policymakers, such as Greek central bank governor Yanis Stournaras and Italian board member Fabio Panetta, have argued that the rise in yields is unwarranted and jeopardising the euro zone's recovery.

But their view was not shared by the whole Governing Council.

German board member Isabel Schnabel and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann have been more cautious, with the former going as far as saying that a rise in yields could be welcome if it reflected improved growth prospects.

The ECB has carried out gross PEPP purchases of 19.7 billion euros per week on average since launching the programme in late March 2020, according to ECB data collected by UniCredit.