ECB Lautenschalager: Favours Bond Buying Scale-Back From Jan

     LONDON (MNI) - European Central Bank Executive Board member Sabine

Lautenschlager said Monday that the time had come to scale back government bond

buying, starting as soon as January.

     "We need to discuss how to exit from our unconventional monetary policy,

and then we need to do it. My opinion is clear: we should begin to scale back

our bond purchases at the beginning of next year," Lautensclager told an

audience at Hohenheim University in Stuttgart.

     She was certain that this would be a step towards ending unconventional

measures to an end, and when they ended, "it will mark the last chapter of this

turbulent tale".

     Lautenschlager, who also serves as Vice-Chair of the Supervisory Board of

the ECB, argued that given the low inflation, monetary policy needed to be

expansive.

     "Admittedly, the appropriate degree of expansion and the necessary tools

are moot points. In any case, we must bear in mind that some of the ECB's more

unconventional tools also have side effects. And these side effects will grow in

magnitude the longer the tools are used. So, the future holds the final answer

to our question of whether monetary policy was optimally calibrated," she added.

     "If we manage to put the unconventional tools back into the box when the

time comes, we will be able to claim that the ECB successfully achieved its

objective. And in my view, this time has come," she said.

--MNI London Bureau; tel: +44 203-586-2225; email: les.commons@marketnews.com

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