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Why the ECB should not insist on repayment of its Greek bonds

De Grauwe, Paul, Ji, Yuemei, (2015), ” Why the ECB should not insist on repayment of its Greek bonds”, Voxeu, 16 Ιουλίου

When the ECB buys a Eurozone member’s bonds, the government pays interest to the ECB but the ECB rebates it to the government. If Greece repays its ECB-held bonds, it loses this ‘free borrowing’. This column argues that repayment is like ‘reverse QE’. To maintain its QE targets, more bonds from other EZ members must be bought – thus shifting the free borrowing from Greece to other EZ members. To avoid this perverse outcome, the ECB could extend the maturity of the Greek bonds.

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