“Last year, the ECB supported ailing Greece for months, because the EU couldn’t agree on a bailout package for so long. It recently looked the other way when the Irish central bank came to the aid of a bank, and the prohibition on directly funding public budgets was cunningly circumvented. If the ECB were now forced to help an Italian government that is unwilling to institute reforms, its credibility would be destroyed once and for all. Many central bankers are no longer willing to cooperate with the lawmakers behind Europe’s rescue programs.”
