Jörg Meuthen
European Central Bank Report for 2017
European Parliament, Strasbourg, France, January, 15, 2019, PV
15/01/2019 14
[Jörg Meuthen is national co-chairman of the Alternative für Deutschland and
the lone AfD member in the European Parliament. He here addresses Mario Draghi,
retiring president of the European Central Bank (EZB). The Target program is
part of the euro rescue regime designed to narrow the spread between German
bond yields and those of other members of the euro zone and whereby the Germans
are in effect required to pay for some of their own exports.]
Herr
President, right honorable Herr President of the EZB.
Your
balance does not come out well. When you began in 2011, you were considered a
hawk. That was already then false.
The
interest rates are low as never before. They have not once been raised in your
seven years in office. Germany, the most important engine of the eurozone, is
on verge of a recession. That will drag down the eurozone. You no longer have
the possibility of reacting thereto with a reduction of rates.
You
have bought bonds by the billions and stretched the EZB balance to the extreme.
You have thereby made the poor poorer and the rich richer. You have driven the
most expansive monetary policy that there is. The Target balance is completely
out of control. Germany has claims of almost a trillion euros which may be
worthless. Your last move now is to play for time during the remainder of your
term so as to leave this shambles to your successor.
My
hope is that annalists will recognize that it is you who is responsible for the
economic disaster in the eurozone. This disaster will be exposed in a not
distant time when you long since have been enjoying your retirement.
