The European Central Bank said Thursday that it will nearly double its subscribed capital by 2013 due to greater volatility in financial markets and interest rates, and heightened credit risks.
The crisis rattling the euro has shaken Germans' confidence in the currency but despite the grumbling, the advantages for the world's number two exporter far outweigh the downsides, analysts and politicians say.
German government sources said Tuesday they would be in favour of a possible European Central Bank capital increase to shore up confidence amid an ongoing crisis in eurozone bond markets.
Bundesbank chief Axel Weber indicated Friday the European Central Bank would pursue relaxed monetary policies into 2011 while suggesting he might not be a "diplomatic" ECB head.
Nobel Prize-winning US economist Paul Krugman launched a withering attack on Monday on Axel Weber, the head of Germany's central bank and the most likely successor to European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet.
European Central Bank chief Jean-Claude Trichet has blamed Germany and France for helping to pave the way to the current debt crisis in the eurozone by setting a poor fiscal example.
The French head of the European Central Bank on Monday differed sharply with his possible German successor over a radical switch of ECB policy to buy up government bonds which critics say could stoke inflation.
Germany's national bank, the Deutsche Bundesbank, has shown signs of irritation that the European Central Bank (ECB) has chosen to buy the state bonds of highly indebted eurozone countries.
As a financial storm battered Europe and rain beat down on Frankfurt, the European Central Bank laid the cornerstone on Wednesday for its glittering new twin-towered headquarters.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy muscled Chancellor Angela Merkel by threatening to pull his country out of the euro currency union unless Germany helped Greece with its debt crisis, a Spanish newspaper reported Friday.
Chancellor Angela Merkel's cabinet on Tuesday approved Germany's share of a trillion-dollar rescue package of loan guarantees for crisis-hit European countries amid reports she had been prodded by US President Barack Obama to take action.
The European Central Bank in Frankfurt on Tuesday resumed loans of US dollars following an agreement with the US Federal Reserve that is part of a massive EU plan to save the euro.
Germany on Monday appeared likely to step up its campaign to make Bundesbank chief Axel Weber the next European Central Bank president, as eurozone ministers met to decide on the ECB's vice president.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared on Thursday that the European Union would not "leave Greece on its own" with its deficit crisis ahead of an EU summit in Brussels.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel believes the euro faces a "very difficult phase" with Greece's budget crisis putting the eurozone under "huge, huge pressures," according to comments published Thursday.
The number of fake euro banknotes seized in the second half of 2009 was eight percent higher than in the first six months, the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank said on Monday, continuing a trend that began in late 2007.
Europe's powerhouse Germany gave a cautious welcome on Friday to proposals from the European Union's new Spanish presidency for a form of "government" for the bloc on economic issues.
European Central Bank President Jean-Claude Trichet urged the 16 countries using the euro to slash their deficits "in 2011 at the latest," in an interview published Sunday in German tabloid <i>Bild am Sonntag</i>.
The European Central Bank said Thursday it would start construction of new Frankfurt headquarters in early 2010 and would meet its initial budget despite a nearly three-year delay.
Conspicuously absent in the debate over two big-hitting EU posts up for grabs on Thursday, heavyweight Germany has aroused suspicions that it wants another job – president of the European Central Bank.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel may have sought to score political points by slamming central banks last week, but she also echoed fears over growing public debt and waning bank independence.
Germany rejects any changes to EU rules on national deficits, a deputy minister said in comments published Thursday after France called for spending limits to be relaxed due to the financial crisis.
The European Central Bank on Thursday cut its main interest rate by 25 basis points to 1.00 percent – marking a new record low for borrowing costs in the eurozone.
