ECB Meeting: 18 questions about Greece

The most interesting part of today's ECB meeting was the ECB's decision to raise the ELA funding to Greek banks by EUR900bn over one week. The decision follows the Greek parliament's approval of the prior actions, which has changed the situation, implying the ECB has again judged that the conditions to increase the ELA have been restored, notes Danske Bank.

According to Draghi it is uncontroversial that Greek debt relief is needed. This is in line with the view of the IMF, but against the hawkish stance from Germany. The EU Summit statement stresses that [nominal haircuts] on the debt cannot be undertaken, but the creditors are willing to discuss possible additional measures after completion of the first successful review. Almost all of the questions in the Q&A (18 out of 23) were about the situation in Greece. In response to those questions, Draghi repeated several times that the euro is irreversible, it is not up to the ECB to decide on membership of the euro area, the ECB acts on the assumption that Greece will stay in the euro and that the ECB expects Greece to repay the ECB on Monday 20 July.

The introductory statement was only little changed compared to June. According to Draghi, the recent uncertainty related to Greece had not changed the economic outlook, but he reiterated other ECB members' comments as he said the ECB will respond to an unwarranted tightening of the monetary policy stance. Finally, Draghi said that the ECB will only reduce QE purchases in August following the front-loading in May-July. This implies purchases will be around EUR52bn in August. Related to this, Draghi pre-announced another front-loading period ahead of December, when market liquidity will again be limited, says Danske Bank.