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The new head of the European Central Bank signaled on Thursday he was ready to take stronger action to fight Europe's debt crisis if political leaders agree next week on much tighter budget controls in the 17-nation euro zone.
Speaking a day after the world's major central banks took joint action to provide cheaper dollar funding for starved European banks, Mario Draghi painted a dark picture of the state of the banking system.
"What I believe our economic and monetary union needs is a new fiscal compact—a fundamental restatement of the fiscal rules together with the mutual fiscal commitments that euro area governments have made," he told the European Parliament.
"We might be asked whether a new fiscal compact would be enough to stabilise markets and how a credible longer-term vision can be helpful in the short-term. Our answer is that it is definitely the most important element to start restoring credibility.
"Other elements might follow, but the sequencing matters."
Draghi did not spell out what action the ECB might take, but it is under huge political and market pressure to massively step up purchases of euro zone government bonds or to lend money to the IMF to support ailing Italy and Spain.