FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank's programme of bond-buying went unused for the sixth week in a row last week, the bank said on Monday, showing no sign of responding to Spain and Italy's slipping back into market sights in the debt crisis.
A drop in pressure on key euro zone bond markets at the start of the year saw the ECB all but shut down its Securities Markets Programme (SMP) in recent months, but tensions in the debt crisis have risen again in the past two weeks.
Spanish 10-year government bond yields broke above 6 percent for the first time this year last week on persistent concerns about the country's failure to convince investors it can keep its budget deficit in check.
Italy, also back in focus as it battles with controversial labour market reforms, saw its benchmark yields rising above 5.7 percent on Monday after falling to 4.8 percent in early March.
The lack of new ECB purchases this week kept the total of the bonds the bank has bought since May 2010 at 214.0 billion euros. None of the bonds bought previously matured. (For data ECBSMP=ECBF).
Despite only scarce interventions since flooding the market with a second wave of ultra-cheap three-year funding at the end of February, the ECB has kept the programme in place in case market tensions re-emerge, and some policymakers have indicated it could be reactivated.
Executive Board member Benoit Coeure, a Frenchman new to the policymaking team, fed market expectations that the ECB might bring it back into use by saying the instrument was still in place, should the need for it arise.
But key voices at the ECB, particularly German policymakers, are uncomfortable with the purchases, concerned they tread dangerously close to the ultimate ECB taboo of monetary financing of governments' debt.
Governing Council members Ewald Nowotny and Luc Coene also said over the weekend that there is currently no reason to restart bond buys.
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