raise the limits for the issuance of short - term government securities, the t - bills. bundesbank president jens weidmann however goes one step further. he already sees a problem if greek banks extend t - bills, i. e. perform a “ rollover ”. is he right or is he too strict? the ecb ’ s governing council has not yet reached a conclusive opinion on that matter. for me, this is a dynamic process : the more a country – and a banking system – loses market access and the less likely it looks to regain it soon, the greater the risk of indirect monetary financing, and the stricter we have to be. our response has been to observe the current situation very closely and promptly in order to prevent any circumvention of the ban on monetary financing. the supervisory arm also has a role to play here. that means that the course is set and that no more t - bills should be issued, but it can even amount to a requirement for athens to reduce the volume? we have to see how the situation develops. but i also uphold the applicable legislation. the government in athens is complaining that the ecb was less severe with the previous government in 2012. no, the rules are the same. at that time there was a programme, a cooperative government and the prospect of a successful review of the programme and its implementation. currently, we are far from agreement. promises alone are not enough. that applies especially when they are undermined in public. how frustrated are you by the government in athens? the fragile recovery in greece seems to be stalled and government finances are deteriorating. the figures have clearly got worse. that ’ s no surprise. it also shows how dangerous the crisis is if it leads to parties from the far ends of the political spectrum bearing responsibility which have no experience of government or of how europe works. this then requires a period of adaptation in a phase when there is no time. in your view, would it make sense to introduce capital controls in order to stop the enormous outflows of capital? capital controls are alien to a monetary union and they should only be invoked in an emergency. or is it too late because a lot money has already “ fled ”? we certainly have to keep an eye on the situation. how likely is it that greece deliberately or “ accidentally ” leaves the euro area? if you have a chance to shape things, you don ’ t assume that the result will be an accident.

yves mersch : interview in borsen - zeitung interview with mr yves mersch, member of the executive board of the european central bank, in borsen - zeitung, conducted by mr mark schrors and published on 8 april 2015. * * * mr mersch, the start of the ecb ’ s public sector purchase programme has made a deep impression on the financial markets : the stock markets are up, the euro is sharply down and the returns on euro government bonds have clearly fallen again. how surprised are you by the strength of the impact of quantitative easing ( qe )? it ’ s true, long - term interest rates have fallen further, in some cases to all - time lows. all in all, the financing conditions for the economy have improved. there are also signs that we will soon be moving into positive territory again in terms of lending. it would perhaps be somewhat bold to claim that the better mood in the economy is solely due to qe. but it is clear that qe is having a signalling effect and this channel is working very successfully. but aren ’ t such reports about the successful effect of qe on the real economy somewhat premature? previously, even the ecb used to say that monetary policy measures take 12 – 18 months to have an effect. yes, but monetary policy also works via the signalling channel and in this case it works very effectively and quickly. now we have to wait and see how the other channels work. however, the decision on qe certainly came at the right time. because the economy of the euro area was at a turning point, not least because of cheaper oil? at the beginning of the year we had weakly positive signs. with qe, this development has strengthened. but isn ’ t there also a danger of “ overdosing ”? the governing council will carefully monitor the situation every month. we have now adopted a plan that we intend to follow up on : we are making purchases to the tune of €60 billion every month until september 2016. this forms the basis for our march projections, which envisage a slow return to an inflation rate that is close to our understanding of stable prices : accordingly, we shall be at 1. 8 % in 2017. however, if we see that we are going beyond that figure, it would of course be appropriate to consider whether we need to adjust our plan. in other words, if the new projections in june foresee an overshooting of the