ECB agrees new bond-buying plan: Draghi

FRANKFURT: The European Central Bank
agreed a new bond-buying program on Thursday to lower struggling euro
zone countries' borrowing costs which would serve as a "fully effective
backstop", ECB President Mario Draghi said on Thursday.
The
ECB Governing Council agreed on the "modalities of outright monetary
transactions", Draghi told a news conference after the Council's
monthly policymaking meeting in Frankfurt.
Seeking to back up
his pledge to do whatever it takes to preserve the euro, Draghi said
the new bond-buying program, aimed at the secondary market, would
"safeguard the monetary policy transmission in all countries in the
euro zone area".
It would address bond market distortions and the "unfounded" fears of investors about the irreversibility of the euro.
The
scheme, which the Bundesbank is known to have opposed, would be a
"fully effective backstop to prevent potentially destructive
scenarios", he said.
"We are strictly within our mandate," Draghi said. - Reuters