For me, it’s not so much about the need for capital that we found during the health check of more than 120 of the largest banking groups in the euro area. The success of the health check was that the institutions prepared themselves for this test, also by indeed strengthening their balance sheets by around € billion.
That has brought stability; now we need to turn to the many national transitional rules, that do not have a positive effect on the quality of capital. For some weeks now the ECB has been buying large quantities of government bonds. However, the euro area economy has long since stabilised and no longer actually needs any monetary stimulus. Is the purchase programme a mistake?