Mario Draghi 2013an eta 2017an

(i) Mario Draghi Responds To Zero Hedge: “There Is No Plan B”¹

Apr 4, 2013

This happened earlier today, at the ECB press conference:

Scott Solano, DPA: Mr Draghi, I’ve got a couple of question from the viewers at Zero Hedge, and one of them goes like this: say the situation in Greece or Spain deteriorates even further, and they want to or are forced to step out of the Eurozone, is there a plan in place so that the markets don’t basically collapse? Is there some kind of structural system, structural safety net, especially in the area of derivatives? And the second questions is: you spoke earlier about the Emergency Liquidity Assistance, and what would have happened to the ELA in Cyprus, the approximately €10 billion, if the country had decided to leave the Eurozone?

Mario Draghi, ECB: Well you really are asking questions that are so hypothetical that I don’t have an answer to them. Well, I may have a partial answer. These questions are formulated by people who vastly underestimate what the Euro means for the Europeans, for the Euro area. They vastly underestimate the amount of political capital that has been invested in the Euro. And so they keep on asking questions like: “If the Euro breaks down, and if a country leaves the Euro, it’s not like a sliding door. It’s a very important thing. It’s a project in the European Union. That’s why you have a very hard time asking people like me “what would happened if.” No Plan B.

Secondly, I think the ECB has shown its determination to fight any redenomination risk. And OMT with its precise rules and acting within its mandate, is there to this purpose. So that’s the answer to the first question.

The second question was about the ELA, but again it’s related to “if Cyprus leaves” and again we don’t have that in mind, so…. No Plan B.

(…)

Beraz, argi eta garbi, 2013an EBZ-k ez zeukan inongo plan B.

EBZ-k “whatever it takes“ egingo luke euroari eusteko… (The ECB was desperate to give the impression that no matter what, Europe’s cohesion is unbreakable)

(ii) In Stunning Admission, Draghi Says A Country Can Leave Eurozone But Must “Settle Bill First“²

by Tyler Durden

Jan 21, 2017

Less than 4 years ago, and shortly after his infamous “whatever it takes” threat to speculators, Mario Draghi responded to a question from Zero Hedge readers, saying “there is no Plan B” when it comes to contingency plans for a Eurozone nation leaving the monetary union. The reasoning was simple: the mere contemplation of such a scenario assigned a probability to its occurrence, which is why the ECB was desperate to give the impression that no matter what, Europe’s cohesion is unbreakable.

Fast forward four years later, when not only has this particular strategy been thoroughly rejected, but for the first time ever the head of the ECB provided a framework, vague as it may be, laying out what a Eurozone exit would look like.

In a letter to two Italian lawmakers in the European Parliament released on Friday, and first reported by Reuters, Mario Draghi implied that a country could leave the euro zone – so much for “No Plan B” – but first it would need to settle or debts with the bloc’s TARGET2 payments system before severing ties.

“If a country were to leave the Eurosystem, its national central bank’s claims on or liabilities to the ECB would need to be settled in full,” Draghi said in the letter. He did not specify in what currency the “settlement” would have to take place. It was also not clear just what the ECB would do in response if a country did not “settle its claims in full”: at last check the ECB did not have a policy-enforcing army.

As Reuters confirms, the comment by Draghi is “a rare reference by Draghi to the possibility of the currency zone losing members.” We would say not just “reference” but admission that a Italexit is all too possible, however the only way the ECB would allow it, would be for Italy first to pay its €357 billion ³TARGET2 bill (which various confused and clueless tenured economists over the past five years claimed would never be used by the ECB as a bargaining chip in “exit” negotiations and has no political implications; oops).

To be sure, the beneficiary of such a transfer payment would be the country most reliant on the perpetuation of the statu quo: Germany, which has some €754 billion in Target2 “assets” which could be nullified should one or more Eurozone countries exit without satisfying their payment obligations.

In the letter, Draghi reiterated that the imbalances were due to the ECB’s own bond buying-program, where many of the sellers are foreign investors with accounts in Germany, and ensuing portfolio rebalancing.

(…)

Beraz, lau urte igaro ondore, EBZ-k plan bat dauka, a Italexit is all too possible,…

Baina horretarako, lehendabizi, ordainketa bat egin behar da, (kasu, Italiak €357 mila milioi)

(iii) Warren Mosler-en iritzia (berriz):

Warren B. Mosler ‏@wbmosler

@ClonalAntibody @zerohedge The banks are privately owned ecb members independent of govs so it comes down to deposit insurance/bail ins etc.