Data published by the European Central Bank on Monday showed that the bank bought no bonds of eurozone nations last week after only buying a minimal amount the week before. The ECB first launched its bond-buying blitz, or Securities Market Programme (SMP), in 2010 to help debt-wracked eurozone countries that were finding it difficult to drum up financing in the normal way via the markets.
But the purchases have been scaled back to almost zero since the ECB pumped more than one trillion euros ($1.3 trillion) in liquidity into the financial system via two three-year loan operations. The bond-buying programme was controversial from the start, with critics saying the ECB was overstepping its mandate in buying up sovereign bonds on the secondary market.
ECB President Mario Draghi and his predecessor Jean-Claude Trichet always said the measure was only temporary and aimed at easing strains in the 17-nation euro bloc but two prominent German ECB members quit in protest over the practice. Between January and August 2011, the purchases dried up, but the ECB resumed the programme in August when renewed strains pushed Italian and Spanish borrowing rates to unsustainable levels. At one point, purchases reached as much as 22 billion euros ($29 billion) in a single week. In total, the ECB has amassed a portfolio of around 218 billion euros in eurozone government bonds since the start of the programme.