VIENNA: The European Central Bank can play a much greater part in helping to tackle the euro zone's sovereign debt crisis, Austrian Chancellor Werner Faymann said on Sunday.
Discussing European leaders' agreement last week to tighten controls on state finances as a way to restore market confidence, Faymann told Austrian television it was important for countries to adopt strict fiscal discipline.
"We want to prevent more countries from becoming programme countries (requiring bailouts) with the intention and this is my declared goal of making the safety nets even stronger than they are now," he said.
"That may mean (joint issuance of) euro-bonds or the construction of the EFSF link to the European Central Bank. The ECB is independent, but it could play a much greater role in the servicing of sovereign debt."
The ECB did emerge from the EU summit with a new role as it agreed to take charge of running market operations for the euro zone's European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF) and European Stability Mechanism (ESM) bailout funds.
Although it will essentially just provide technical help, this move brings the ECB a European institution markets respect closer to the business of bailing out crisis-hit governments without the central bank having to monetise debt.
The ECB already buys limited amounts of state debt on secondary markets to smooth the conduct of monetary policy but Governing Council members Jens Weidmann and Ewald Nowotny at the weekend both opposed calls for the ECB to do more.
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