‘Eurozone govts need to redouble reform efforts’

BERLIN: National governments in the Eurozone need to redouble their reform efforts to create a “genuine” economic union, ECB Mario Draghi wrote in a German magazine published on Saturday after the European Central Bank’s bond-buying programme was unveiled.
In an advance text of a contribution for the WirtschaftsWoche magazine, Draghi wrote the Eurozone’s political union needs to be deepened.
He said reforms were needed to raise competition, cut bureaucracy and improve labour market flexibility.
“By requiring governments in an economic union to undertake structural reforms, they give credibility (to the idea) that they can actually overcome their debts through growth,” Draghi wrote.
The ECB took launched a government bond-buying programme on Thursday that will pump hundreds of billions in new money into a sagging Eurozone economy. Draghi, who had worked hard to prepare the ground for QE in Germany, did not expressly defend the ECB’s decision in his WirtschaftsWoche contribution, according to the advance text.