Mario Draghi agrees Green QE is possible in the EU

Posted on June 19 2015

It's worth watching the video here (it won't embed). Start at 6.15 and run to the end

Mario Draghi does agree Green QE is possible in the EU.

That's one hurdle down, thanks to Molly Scott Cato.

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6 Responses

John Carter says:

June 22 2015 at 10:17 am

Might want to listen to that video again.

Draghi specifically says that the ECB cannot buy bonds directly from the EIB and it cannot engage in monetary financing.

It can buy EIB bonds in the secondary market (which would lower their yields and make the cost of debt lower) but that debt would still be 100% repayable.

So the basic tenet of your Green QE idea – that debt could be issued cost free then effectively cancelled – is still false.
- Richard Murphy says:
  
  June 22 2015 at 10:20 am
  
  You really do not listen do you John?
  
  The debt would be EIB owned by ECB via a market ruse because Maastricht got things wrong
  
  And so it is gov’t owned entity to gov’t owned entity lending
  
  Who cares if it is repayable in that case? It just rolls over
  
  Next faux complaint please?
  - John Carter says:
    
    June 22 2015 at 2:09 pm
    
    “Who cares if it is repayable in that case? It just rolls over”
    
    It doesn’t just roll over. When those bonds mature you would either need to reverse the QE operation or issue more bonds into the market to fund those maturities. Or just print money, which seems to be your option.
    
    If you “cancelled” those EIB bonds, the ECB would have a massive hole in it’s balance sheet which would need to be filled by EU governments, getting us back to square one.
    
    You seem to live in a magical land where money grows on trees and we can use this magic money to buy as many lovely green assets as we want. All with no consequences at all. Unfortunately, in th real world, real assets cost real money – and if that real money is not forthcoming, real debt.
  - Richard Murphy says:
    
    June 22 2015 at 6:02 pm
    
    Of course they need to roll over
    
    I said that
    
    And you have agreed
    
    Next?
  - John Carter says:
    
    June 23 2015 at 7:05 am
    
    Rolling them over does NOT mean they can be cancelled, which is the argument you make when discussing Green QE.
    
    You are essentially arguing that Green QE gives us the ability to fund huge infrastructure builds at zero cost – because we can cancel the debt. Which is of course utter nonsense. Nothing is free.
  - Richard Murphy says:
    
    June 23 2015 at 10:10 am
    
    The reality is cancellation
    
    I am interested in substance
    
    You are obsessed with form
    
    Deliberately, I presume