[Video] Should debts held by the ECB be cancelled?

24 September 2021 by Eric Toussaint , Renaud Lambert , Aline Fares , Benjamin Lemoine

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CADTM Summer University 2021: Global Crisis, Debt Cancellation for Social Justice!

Thursday 23 September, 6.30-8.30 p.m. – Should debts held by the ECB ECB
European Central Bank The European Central Bank is a European institution based in Frankfurt, founded in 1998, to which the countries of the Eurozone have transferred their monetary powers. Its official role is to ensure price stability by combating inflation within that Zone. Its three decision-making organs (the Executive Board, the Governing Council and the General Council) are composed of governors of the central banks of the member states and/or recognized specialists. According to its statutes, it is politically ‘independent’ but it is directly influenced by the world of finance.

https://www.ecb.europa.eu/ecb/html/index.en.html be cancelled?

With Renaud Lambert (Le Monde Diplomatique), Benjamin Lemoine (researcher with the CNRS and author of L’ordre de la dette. Enquête sur les infortunes de l’État et la prospérité des marchés), Éric Toussaint (spokesperson for CADTM International) and Aline Farès (author of Chroniques d’une ex-banquière).

In February 2021, the question of what to do with the €2,500 billion of sovereign debt Sovereign debt Government debts or debts guaranteed by the government. held by the European Central Bank Central Bank The establishment which in a given State is in charge of issuing bank notes and controlling the volume of currency and credit. In France, it is the Banque de France which assumes this role under the auspices of the European Central Bank (see ECB) while in the UK it is the Bank of England.

ECB : http://www.bankofengland.co.uk/Pages/home.aspx was all over the media. On 5 February, 150 economists from 13 European countries published an op-ed calling for the cancellation of those debts. Three weeks later, in another op-ed, 80 economists called for another solution. Meanwhile, as expected, the president of the ECB Christine Lagarde stated that cancelling this debt ran against the EU treaties and could not therefore be considered. So, for or against? Would it be a mere temporary relief or a real political lever?


Author
Eric Toussaint

is a historian and political scientist who completed his Ph.D. at the universities of Paris VIII and Liège, is the spokesperson of the CADTM International, and sits on the Scientific Council of ATTAC France.
He is the author of Greece 2015: there was an alternative. London: Resistance Books / IIRE / CADTM, 2020 , Debt System (Haymarket books, Chicago, 2019), Bankocracy (2015); The Life and Crimes of an Exemplary Man (2014); Glance in the Rear View Mirror. Neoliberal Ideology From its Origins to the Present, Haymarket books, Chicago, 2012, etc.
See his bibliography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%89ric_Toussaint
He co-authored World debt figures 2015 with Pierre Gottiniaux, Daniel Munevar and Antonio Sanabria (2015); and with Damien Millet Debt, the IMF, and the World Bank: Sixty Questions, Sixty Answers, Monthly Review Books, New York, 2010. He was the scientific coordinator of the Greek Truth Commission on Public Debt from April 2015 to November 2015.

Other articles in English by Eric Toussaint (621)

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Author
Renaud Lambert

Author
Aline Fares

Conférencière, auteure et militante.
Voir également sa page “Chroniques d’une ex-banquière”

Author
Benjamin Lemoine

is a CNRS researcher at the Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire en Sciences Sociales and currently a member of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. He Tweets @benjlemoine.

Other articles in English by Benjamin Lemoine (8)

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