ECB's Weidmann: Criticism of ECB policy may be due to blurring of monetary & fiscal bounds

Speaking in an interview with Die Welt and reported via Reuters, ECB governing council member and Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann noted the following:

Criticism of ECB policy may be because some measures blurred boundaries between monetary and fiscal policy

The Governing Council agreed monetary policy needed to be expansive in the current environment

The vehemence of the debate perhaps also stems from some of the measures we have taken so far having blurred the boundaries between monetary and fiscal policy and having redistributed government liability risks via central bank balance sheets

ECB Council had to be careful not to overstep the boundary to fiscal policy and that was why the bank's latest government bond purchase programme foresaw very limited sharing of liability

Nonetheless I still think purchases of government bonds in the euro zone are problematic because the central banks become the biggest creditors of their states

We should let what has been decided take effect and not start speculating about further measures yet again - that applies to interest rates too

Do not approve of discussions about "helicopter money", and that it was not on the table for the ECB's Governing Council.