Thursday was a big day for the euro. European Central Bank (ECB) president Mario Draghi unveiled a plan that could see the central bank buying up unlimited amounts of bonds in a move he believes makes the euro irreversible and will draw a line under the euro zone debt crisis. Markets reacted positively to the news, but as always with the euro zone debt crisis, there is a snag.
"Under appropriate conditions, we will have a fully effective backstop to prevent potentially destructive scenarios," said Draghi in his monthly press conference at the ECB’s headquarters in Frankfurt.
The conditions in question are going to prove difficult because in order to be included in the ECB program, any country will have needed to ask to EU and International Monetary Fund (IMF) for assistance. In order to get that assistance, a country will have to accept conditions on its fiscal policy, something Spain has until now been very reluctant to do.
In fact the issue is so sensitive that Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy claimed it was not even raised at a meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Madrid. "When there is news I will tell you,” was Rajoy’s rather irritable response to reporters following the meeting.
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