The Institution is currently share 45 to 50,000,000,000 euros of securities with central banks in the euro area. The capital gain would benefit Greece Exchange of avoiding its obligations to the ECB to bring within the scope of a Greek law that provides for requiring all creditors to waive a portion of their assets.
The European Central Bank has submitted to a vote Thursday its Governors an exchange transaction Greek bonds in its possession against new titles. The ECB refused to comment on the subject. However, according to German daily Die Welt, the swap would have been endorsed. It would be ongoing and should be completed no later than Monday.
The exchange of its obligations – practiced with the central banks of the Eurosystem – the ECB avoids putting himself under the blow of a law in preparation for Athens plans to require all its creditors to forego some of their Greek assets.
It will also potentially to the institution to realize capital gains. Indeed, the exchange would be based on the nominal value of shares – estimated at 45 to 50 billion euros, while the ECB has purchased the cheapest on the market in 2010, supposedly at a discount of 70% 80%. The added value thus generated would be redistributed to countries in the euro area, and could ultimately benefit to Greece.
According to AFP, the President of the German Central Bank (Bundesbank) Jens Weidmann voted against the project. For Mr. Weidmann, in doing so, the ECB "is liable to a complaint of private creditors" of Greece, who will themselves forced to take a loss. In addition, it considers that this may cause a lack of investor confidence to the whole euro area, for fear that such an initiative is also taken for other obligations in possession of the ECB.
The institution also bought these last months of the Portuguese debt, Irish, Spanish and Italian under its repurchase of debt of troubled countries on the secondary market. Private creditors of Greece agreed to a deletion of 100 billion Greek debt to help the country recover its finances. A plan to which the ECB has always refused to take part. But the pressure has made important recent weeks to consent to an act while the voluntary contribution of private creditors may be insufficient.
Last week, the ECB president Mario Draghi had suggested that the ECB was ready to redistribute the profits it could realize on such obligations to members of the euro area, but that in no circumstances consent to losses .