FRANKFURT, Germany (AP) — European Central Bank president Mario Draghi held a news conference Thursday at which he indicated the bank stood ready to intervene in the bond markets along with the eurozone bailout fund to help drive down excessively high borrowing costs in some countries.
Here are some of the things he said:
— "What is the meaning of irreversibility? Irreversibility means it cannot be reversed — so you don't go back to the lire or the drachma.... That's what means. It stays. It is pointless to bet against the euro. It is pointless to go short on the euro. That's the message. It's pointless because the euro will stay."
— "It is within our mandate to do whatever is within our power to preserve the euro as a stable currency."
— "The eurozone is a strong place in the world and the euro is a strong currency, and it's irreversible. That's the substance of the speech I gave in London. Today, we're not rowing back. There was an endorsement by the governing council of the speech. "
— "We don't plan any presentation of our monetary policy discussions to the heads of state. It's not been discussed. The point is, we are independent and we don't foresee presentations to the heads of state of our monetary policy measures."
— "Monetary policy will not be enough to achieve these objectives unless there is action by governments... Action by the government, by the euro-area level, is as essential for repairing monetary transmission channels as is appropriate action on our side."
