欧洲央行行长的万亿欧元承诺

    欧洲央行（ECB）行长马里奥•德拉吉上周四表示，他的新刺激措施可能让欧央行释放最多1万亿欧元贷款，从而确保欧元区银行在下一年可以自由地向正在摆脱衰退的经济放贷。

    德拉吉在每个月定期召开的新闻发布会上解释了欧央行所说的“定向长期再融资操作”（TLTRO）的技术细节。他表示，今年晚些时候的两次TLTRO可以为银行初步提供4000亿欧元资金，而这项措施的最终规模可能远远超过这个数字。

    多年来，处于历史低点的利率一直未能重新激活商业贷款，欧洲央行因此转向了TLTRO。正如来自布鲁塞尔智囊机构Bruegel的西尔维亚•梅尔所说，2011年11月到2014年，欧元区企业贷款减少了4260亿欧元。原因是，在陷入困境的欧元区外围国家，银行正在设法消除房地产泡沫产生的遗留问题，中小企业信贷越来越匮乏。

    德拉吉的TLTRO将使银行能在2018年之前一直以超低融资成本向企业和消费者放贷（但不是以抵押贷款的形式），从而让它们更容易从这些贷款中获利。

    但这一点取决于两个假设。首先，银行本身能通过欧洲央行的资产质量审核与压力测试，不至于因此而关门大吉；其次，明年仍然有企业可以发放贷款。

    2010-2012年，几乎崩溃的欧元区正在艰难而缓慢地复苏，在这里创造最终信贷需求也许并不容易。德国是欧元区表现最好的经济体，状况要比其他欧元区国家强得多。在这里，经济研究机构Ifo的信贷供应指标已经连续三年处于历史最低点；欧洲央行数据也显示，2010年年底以来，德国企业贷款仅增长了1.6%，消费贷款增幅也不到4%。

    欧洲央行在本月早些时候的利率政策会议上决定保持基准利率不变。它上个月才将基准利率下调到新的历史低点，本月的决定多少有些无可避免。目前。欧元区的主要再融资利率为0.15%，存款利率为负0.1%。

    德拉吉的新闻发布会还有两点引人注意。第一，德拉吉表示从明年开始欧央行管理委员会调整利率的频率将变成每六周一次，而不是1999年欧元问世以来一直实行的每月一次。做出这项决定的原因是，欧央行将公布更详细的会议报告，类似于美联储（Federal Reserve）和英国央行（Bank of England）的会议纪要。

    不过，德拉吉说，还不清楚这些报告会不会说明管理委员会各位成员的投票情况。本来这些成员应该按照整个欧元区的总体需要来投票，但欧元区危机已经让这个概念濒临崩溃，因为它导致需要援助的国家和需要为援助提供资金的国家在态度上出现了两极分化。

    其次，和美联储主席珍妮特•耶伦一样，德拉吉也对国际清算银行（Bank for International Settlements）的说法予以了反击。国际清算银行认为全球各主要央行的货币政策过于宽松，正在金融市场产生不稳定的泡沫。

    President Mario Draghi said Thursday his new stimulus measures could release up to €1 trillion in lending by the European Central Bank, ensuring that eurozone banks can lend liberally to the economy next year as it drags itself out of recession.

    Unveiling the technical details of what the ECB is calling “Targeted Long-Term Refinancing Operations,” or TLTROs, Draghi told his regular monthly press conference that the eventual scope of the program could far exceed the €400 billion that banks will be able to borrow initially from two operations later this year.

    The ECB has turned to TLTROs to revive lending to businesses after years of rock-bottom interest rates failed to do the trick. As Silvia Merler of the Brussels-based think tank Bruegel points out, corporate lending in the eurozone fell by €426 billion between November 2011 and 2014, as banks in the currency union’s stressed periphery worked off the hangover from a real-estate binge and increasingly starved small and medium-sized enterprises of any credit at all.

    Draghi’s TLTROs will allow bank to lock in until 2018 ultra-low funding costs for any new loans they extend to businesses and consumers (but not in the form of mortgages), making it easier for them to make profits on such loans.

    But that rests on two assumptions: first, that the banks themselves will get through the ECB’s “Asset Quality Review” and stress test without being closed down, and second, that there will still be companies to lend to next year.

    Generating final credit demand may not be easy to generate in a eurozone that is looking at a grinding, slow recovery from its near-death experience in 2010-12. In Germany, by far the strongest eurozone economy, the research institute Ifo’s barometer of access to credit has been stuck at historic lows for three years, and yet business lending is only up 1.6% from the end of 2010, while consumer loans are up less than 4%, according to ECB data.

    The ECB had earlier left its key interest rates unchanged at its monthly meeting, somewhat inevitably after cutting them a new record low only last month. The key refinancing rate stays at 0.15%, while the deposit rate stays at -0.1%.

    Draghi’s press conference was notable for two other things. First, he said, from next year, the ECB governing council will only meet to set interest rates every six weeks, rather than every month, as has been the case since the euro was launched in 1999. That is linked to a decision to start publishing more detailed “accounts” of the meetings, akin to the minutes published by the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England.

    However, Draghi said it wasn’t yet clear whether those accounts would say which way individual council members voted. ECB members are supposed to vote according to the needs of the euro zone as a whole, but that concept has been stretched to breaking point by the euro crisis, which polarized the attitudes of countries that either needed bail-outs or had to pay for them.

    Second, Draghi found himself joining forces withFederal Reserve Board Chairman Janet Yellen to rebut accusations from the Bank for International Settlements that the monetary policy of the world’s biggest central banks is too loose, and creating destabilizing bubbles in financial markets.