FRANKFURT, Nov 18 (Reuters) – European Central Bank
chief Mario Draghi told euro zone governments on Friday to act
fast to get their rescue fund up and running, expressing
exasperation at their lack of progress in response to an
escalating debt crisis.

With the ECB under intense pressure to play a greater role
in tackling the euro zone crisis, Draghi said governments had
failed to put into practice decisions underpinning the European
Financial Stability Facility — the rescue fund which they have
promised to give more firepower without yet explaining how.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – European Central Bank President Mario Draghi pressed euro zone governments on Friday to kick-start the bloc’s EFSF rescue fund, showing exasperation at their slow progress and resisting pressure for the ECB to do more.

Other senior ECB policymakers joined Draghi in pushing the governments to act, saying the central bank should not be asked to go beyond its mandate of delivering price stability.

FRANKFURT, Nov 18 (Reuters) – European Central Bank
President Mario Draghi pressed euro zone governments on Friday
to kick-start the bloc’s EFSF rescue fund, showing exasperation
at their slow progress and resisting pressure for the ECB to do
more.

Other senior ECB policymakers joined Draghi in pushing the
governments to act, saying the central bank should not be asked
to go beyond its mandate of delivering price stability.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Union’s banking regulator wants lenders to bolster their capital bases rather than cut back on lending, as they gird themselves to cope with the sovereign debt crisis.

If banks opt to shrink balance sheets it could potentially harm the economy, Andrea Enria, chairman of the European Banking Authority, said on Tuesday at a conference.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann said on Monday international pressure for the European Central Bank to play a bigger role in tackling the euro zone debt crisis must end as it could undermine the ECB’s hard-won credibility.

British Prime Minister David Cameron, U.S. President Barack Obama and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin are among those who have recently called for the 17-country bloc’s central bank to take a bigger role in resolving the crisis.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – Lorenzo Bini Smaghi has resigned from his post as member of the European Central Bank’s Executive Board to join Harvard University, ending a diplomatic row between France and Italy, but raising questions over the ECB’s independence under its new chief.

Bini Smaghi had been under pressure to leave his post following the appointment of fellow Italian Mario Draghi as head of the ECB, which left France with no national representative on the board since Draghi took over from Frenchman Jean-Claude Trichet in November.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank more than doubled its purchases of government bonds in the first week of Mario Draghi’s presidency, data showed, with no let-up expected in the controversial program until the euro zone debt crisis eases.

Purchases totaled to 9.52 billion euros, Monday’s ECB bond-buying data showed.

FRANKFURT, Nov 4 (Reuters) – European Central Bank
policymaker Juergen Stark urged the bank on Friday to call an
early halt to its bond-buying programme, stressing it sees the
plan as temporary even as it faces pressure to scale purchases
up to tackle the euro zone crisis.

The controversial programme has come into increasing focus
as Greece’s uncertain future in the euro zone deepens the bloc’s
crisis. Many analysts see the ECB bond-buy plan, and the
firepower it could unleash, as the only way to bring calm.

FRANKFURT, Nov 3 (Reuters) – The European Central Bank cut
interest rates by a quarter point to 1.25 percent in a surprise
move on Thursday and President Mario Draghi said the euro zone
could subside into a “mild recession” in the latter part of
2011.

The Italian has walked into a maelstrom in his first week at
the ECB’s helm, with euro zone leaders contemplating a future
without Greece and economic policy paralysis in his home country
threatening to pitch Rome into the storm.

FRANKFURT (Reuters) – The European Central Bank cut interest rates by a quarter point to 1.25 percent in a surprise move on Thursday and President Mario Draghi said the euro zone could subside into a “mild recession” in the latter part of 2011.

The Italian has walked into a maelstrom in his first week at the ECB’s helm, with euro zone leaders contemplating a future without Greece and economic policy paralysis in his home country threatening to pitch Rome into the storm.