Question: What language does the ECB generally use?
Answer: English

Question: When in communication with other nationalities, what language is generally used?
Answer: normally in their respective language

Question: What language is the ECB website run in?
Answer: English

Question: How are the languages of official documents handled?
Answer: the official languages of the EU

Question: WHat is the biggest factor in the ECB maintaining price stability?
Answer: independence

Question: Who gets to interview and question prospective board members?
Answer: The European Parliament

Question: Why do EU institutions and national governments have to respect the independence of the ECB?
Answer: bound by the treaties

Question: How is the ECB held accountable for it's actions?
Answer: bound to publish reports on its activities and has to address its annual report to the European Parliament

Question: When did the European debt Crisis begin?
Answer: 2009

Question: What did the eurozone states that were thought to not be able to repay their debt face as a consequence?
Answer: the ability of these states to borrow new money to further finance their budget deficits or to refinance existing unsustainable debt levels was strongly reduced

Question: Which country was the first to be at risk for soverign default?
Answer: Greece

Question: Who brought Greece's financial crisis to the forefront?
Answer: new elected government

Question: What had Greece's previous government been hiding?
Answer: its true indebtedness and budget deficit

Question: Which countries didn't want to go around the bail-out clause and have to shoulder the burden of backing the defaulters debts.
Answer: financially stable eurozone states like Germany

Question: What do most see raising the debt celing as doing?
Answer: discourage the crisis states to implement necessary reforms to regain their competitiveness

Question: What could keep the crisis states from trying to stand on their own?
Answer: giving much more financial support to continuously cover the debt crisis or allow even higher budget deficits or debt levels

Question: What term was coined when Greece left the eurozone?
Answer: Grexit

Question: What is Germany's position on wether or not Greece should be in the eurozone?
Answer: If the worst comes to the worst, priority should be given to the euro's stability.

Question: As one of the financial powers, has Germany ever tried to force the crisis states into leaving the eurozone?
Answer: never pushed those exits

Question: Which eurozone country has the biggest need for financial reform?
Answer: Greece

Question: What would cause the private banking system to weaken?
Answer: if the debt rescheduling causes losses on loans held by European banks

Question: Who purchases the debt of countries that cannot repay and are in danger of default?
Answer: wealthy member countries

Question: What happens when the private banking system is weakened?
Answer: pressure on the central bank to come to the aid of those banks

Question: What is to be used to guarantee the debtors repayment, by the banks assuming their debt?
Answer: tax revenues and credit of the wealthy member countries

Question: Is using the tax revenues and credit of the more stable banks to bail out the ones in danger of default an accepted practice?
Answer: is politically controversial

Question: Who retains ownership of the collateral until the debt is paid?
Answer: ECB

Question: Since the ECB doesn't buy bonds outright, how are they used?
Answer: refinancing facilities

Question: What is the manner in which bonds are used at refinancing facilities?
Answer: repurchase agreements, or collateralised loans

Question: Who buys the bonds instead of using them in reverse transactions?
Answer: the Fed

Question: What debt did the ECB focus on abtaining?
Answer: Spanish and Italian

Question: What risk is assumed when the ECB purchases bonds from weaker states?
Answer: a deteriorating balance sheet

Question: Why were italian bonds purchased by the ECB?
Answer: intended to dampen international speculation and strengthen portfolios in the private sector and also the central bank

Question: What was something used to minimize the impact of the soverign-debt crisis?
Answer: Purchases of Italian bonds by the central bank

Question: How does sterilisation help to keep the money flow even?
Answer: highly valued assets are sold at the same time that the weaker assets are purchased

Question: What can a state do with bad assets, rather than cashing them in directly?
Answer: long-term collateral

Question: How can weaker states improve the surface value of their assets?
Answer: adjustments in taxation and expenditure in the economies

Question: By 2012, how much did the ECB spend in covering bad debt?
Answer: €212.1bn

Question: How does the ECB plan to increase the available credit for businesses?
Answer: Outright Monetary Transactions

Question: What is the duration of the Outright Monetary Transactions program?
Answer: no ex-ante time or size limit

Question: When was the new idea for the purchasing of eurozone bonds announced?
Answer: 6 September 2012

Question: How long was the duration of the Securities Markets Programme to last?
Answer: temporary

Question: What can be shuffeled around during a soverign debt crisis to mitigate the damage?
Answer: temporarily moving bad or weak assets

Question: Where do bad and weak assets get moved in times of soverign debt crisis?
Answer: the balance sheets of the European Central Bank

Question: What is shuffling around bad or weak debts from a weaker eurozone member to the ECB known as?
Answer: monetisation

Question: What is monetisation usually viewed as?
Answer: inflationary threat

Question: If the central banks can come to an agreement with the eurozone member about the continued repayment of the debt, what happens to the bad or weak debt?
Answer: move weak assets off their balance sheets

Question: What is being caused by links between soverign debt and failing national banks?
Answer: the sickness of the euro

Question: Which country has been resistant to attempts to make the soverign debt assets more like the U.S. Treasury?
Answer: the German government

Question: Who began to increase their coverage of weaker debts?
Answer: The European Central Bank

Question: What would have to happen to make European sovereign debt assets more like what is found in the U.S. Treasury?
Answer: a collective guarantee of the member states' solvency

Question: Why did propsals about making the European sovereign debt assets more like the US Treasury?
Answer: the crisis of 2010

Question: What did the ECB do to help stabilise the financial system during the subprime mortgage crisis?
Answer: loaned billions of euros to banks

Question: Why did the ECB intervene during the subprime mortgage crisis?
Answer: to stabilise the financial system

Question: Who decided, along with the ECB, to use Term auction to help stabilize the financial crisis and improve dollar liquidity?
Answer: Federal Reserve System

Question: Besides cooperating with other financial institutions, how does the ECB help to maintain stability?
Answer: contributes to maintaining a stable financial system and monitoring the banking sector

Question: When did the ECB and Federal Rserve decide to collaborate on Term auction facility?
Answer: December 2007

Question: What is a perk of the central bank?
Answer: it can make as much money as it deems needed

Question: What kinds of assets does the US Federal Reserve buy?
Answer: bonds issued by the Federal government

Question: What kind of asset will the Federal Reserve purchase in mass quantities at a time of crisis?
Answer: commercial paper

Question: What is the purpose of buying commercial paper in a time of financial crisis?
Answer: to ensure that adequate liquidity is available for functioning