EXCLUSIVE-UPDATE 1-Stark to leave ECB over bond-buying row-sources Reuters - 09/09/2011 15:57:28
* Stark second German board member to quit this year
* Euro, European shares fall in response
* Comes just before end of Governor Trichet's term
(Adds quotes, recasts)
By Andreas Framke and Alexander Hübner
FRANKFURT, Sept 9 (Reuters) - European Central Bank Executive Board member Juergen Stark will step down from his post, because of a conflict over the ECB's controversial bond-buying programme, sources told Reuters on Friday.
The ECB confirmed Stark would be the second German policymaker to leave the bank this year after Bundesbank chief Axel Weber quit in February -- a move also spurred by his opposition to the bond programme.
The bank said Stark had resigned for personal reasons but two sources told Reuters it was related to the bond-buying that has rescued Italy and Spain from crisis over the past month and the euro and European stock markets fell in response.
Bond yield spreads, though, for Europe's struggling periphery were only slightly higher.
Stark's departure would be a severe blow to the ECB, whose experienced president, Jean-Claude Trichet, is due to retire at the end of October. Trichet will be replaced by Mario Draghi, whose native Italy has been under attack from markets.
"This is remarkable," said Manfred Neumann, emeritus economics professor at Bonn University and former thesis adviser to Bundesbank President Jens Weidmann.
"Stark held the same view of the bond-buying as Axel Weber and the current Bundesbank president. It is a position that all the Germans have. This is a sign of huge problems within the central bank. The Germans clearly have a problem with the direction of the ECB."
Stark and Weidmann, together with two other members of the ECB's 23-member Governing Council, opposed the revival of ECB's bond-buying last month.
The ECB reactivated the programme after a 19-week pause to help hold down borrowing costs in Italy and Spain.
The ECB is, however, concerned that by buying the sovereign bonds of Italy -- the euro zone's third largest economy -- it is only encouraging the Italian government to slacken efforts to shore up its finances, and has been irritated by flip-flopping in Rome.
Stark, 63, had been a member of the ECB's six-member Executive Board since June 2006 and held the influential economics portfolio.
His term on the board, whose members form the Governing Council along with the 17 euro zone national bank chiefs, was due to run until May 31, 2014.
The news that Stark will resign comes amid sharp criticism of the ECB's actions by some economists and politicians in his native Germany.
Trichet took aim at Germany, France and Italy on Thursday for watering down the budget rules in Europe's Stability and Growth Pact, saying this contributed to the fiscal mess that ultimately pushed the ECB into buying the debt of troubled economies on bond markets.
"If we have embarked into the SMP (bond) programme...it was because the governments in question had not behaved properly," he said in an impassioned defence of the ECB's record at its monthly news conference.
(Reporting by Andreas Framke and Alexander Huebner; writing by Paul Carrel) Messaging:
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Keywords: ECB STARK/