Question for written answer Z-000024/2015 to the European Central Bank Rule 131 Isabella Adinolfi, Fabio Massimo Castaldo, Rosa D’Amato, Piernicola Pedicini, Marco Valli, Marco Zanni, Marco Zullo, Ignazio Corrao (EFDD)

Subject: Monetary policy and QE

It is becoming increasingly clear that the euro is nothing more than an asymmetric system of fixed exchange rates which offloads liabilities and risks onto central national banks, without however affording them customary monetary support instruments.

As a matter of fact, the risk-sharing procedures involved in the recent quantitative easing programme envisage that, in the event of losses on purchased assets, only 20 % of said losses will be pooled and divided up between Member States, while the remaining 80 % will be entered on the balance sheet of whichever central national bank purchased the debt. Furthermore, that 20 % of shared-risk debt will be divided up as follows: 12 % on debt issued by Community institutions (EIB and ESM) – which are actually risk-free – and only the remaining 8 % on Eurozone sovereign debt.

In light of the figures listed above, does the ECB not believe that the chosen system is in fact merely an attempt to conceal the futility of striving for an optimum currency area (or simply the reluctance to even try), where risk and debt are shared in line with the principles of solidarity and equality which form the cornerstone of the European Union?

Does it not view this decision as yet more evidence of the failure of the single European currency, given the concrete absence of a real European monetary policy?

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