La BCE devient un héros improbable dans la crise de l’euro

Central Bank Becomes an Unlikely Hero in Euro Crisis

[The New York Times]

Throughout the month, countries caught in the eye of the European financial storm, including Italy, Spain and France, have repeatedly defied expectations, selling big batches of bonds to the public at interest rates significantly lower than investors demanded at the height of the euro crisis late last year.
The surprisingly successful auctions owe little to improving economic data around the region. On the contrary, many of the countries that use the euro as their currency appear to be confronting a renewed recession, and pessimism about their growth prospects remains abundant.
Just last week, Standard & Poor’s stripped France of its coveted AAA rating for the first time in recent history and downgraded eight others. Instead, most of the credit seems to go to the European Central Bank, which in late December under its new president, Mario Draghi, quietly began providing emergency loans to European banks — hundreds of billions of dollars of almost interest-free capital that the banks have used to come to the rescue of their national governments.
Lire : nytimes.com