ECB faces tough test on help for eurozone

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The European Central Bank (ECB) faces a new eurozone debt crisis on Thursday, with many wanting it to resume controversial purchases of government debt to ease the market pressure on Italy and Spain.

"A revival of the ECB’s securities markets program (SMP) is the only real option that would prevent a liquidity crisis for Spain and Italy," Goldman Sachs economist Dirk Schumacher said.

The ECB suspended its bond purchases more than 18 weeks ago because they forced it to shoulder a greater amount of a risk that ECB president Jean-Claude Trichet insists should be borne by the governments themselves.

The focus now for the regular ECB interest rates meeting would now be on whether Trichet signals that he is ready to resume those purchases, Barclays Capital economist Julian Callow said.

Traders have sent yields and risk premiums on Spanish and Italian bonds to record highs in recent days, threatening to extend the eurozone debt crisis to its third- and fourth-largest economies.

But Callow noted that, ‘The sums and commitment (required from the ECB) over the next few weeks (so as to have) a credible impact on bond market spreads would be very substantial’ given the amount of Italian and Spanish bonds issued.

Renewed market tensions reflect growing concern ‘about the systemic capacity of the euro area to respond to the evolving crisis,’ European Commission president Jose Manuel Barroso acknowledged on Wednesday.

Hopes for an ECB response are not high.

"While we hope that the ECB will spring a positive surprise and announce bond purchases, we put the chances of that at no more than 25 per cent," Berenberg Bank chief economist Holger Schmieding said.

The ECB is certain to keep its main lending rate at 1.50 per cent after two rate hikes so far this year but analysts say something more has to be done.

"At least they can send a message to say that this cannot carry on and there will be measures taken," urged Angel de Molina Rodriguez at the Spanish brokerage Tressis.

Deutsche Bank senior economist Gilles Moec felt a ‘verbal intervention’ was likely Thursday but he did not expect news that SMP bond purchases would resume soon, estimating that a critical ‘pain threshold’ had probably not been reached yet.

The task of buying eurozone government debt to keep bond markets under control is to be taken on by a eurozone crisis fund known as the European Financial Stability Facility.

Final details must still be worked out however and eurozone members must then give their approval, a process that could take months.

That measure is part of a broader eurozone plan that includes a second rescue package for Greece and backstops for Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain and banks in those countries.

Meanwhile, the ECB faces other problems, notably an economy that has deteriorated sharply since last month when Trichet hinted that the central bank might hike rates again to curb inflation now at 2.5 per cent, well above the target of just under 2 per cent.

Recent data has shown that previously robust core eurozone economies are slowing rapidly and many economists think the ECB will delay a rate hike they had expected in October.

In London, the Bank of England is tipped to maintain its main interest rate at 0.5 per cent due to weak economic growth. Earlier on Thursday, the Bank of Japan (BoJ) voted to keep its key rate unchanged between zero and 0.1 per cent.

The BoJ also intervened in currency markets to tame the rising yen and said it would expand by 10 trillion yen a scheme to buy assets and boost liquidity to help safeguard the nation's post-quake recovery.