The new President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, faced stern criticism of ECB policy from GUE/NGL MEPs in his first appearance before the European Parliament since taking office.

"The ECB price stability objective has turned out to be a disaster especially during this crisis" Greek MEP Nikos Chountis told Draghi. "The role of the bank needs to be changed" he argued, setting out his opposition to the policy of high interest rates and high profits for speculators. "The independence of the ECB is also extremely questionable, the institution is clearly being manipulated by bankers and that must change - there needs to be proper parliamentary scrutiny. The ECB hid behind the alibi of keeping inflation down, and did not do three important things: it did not stop the explosion of spreads; it did not stop the actions of speculators in Credit Rating Agencies (that is even included in its statute); and thirdly it kept interest rates even higher than those in the US and the UK".

"I have here a ransom note sent to the Italian government on the 5th of August that sets forth a detailed prescription of austerity measures" Irish GUE/NGL MEP Paul Murphy said, holding a letter from the ECB signed by Mario Draghi and Jean-Claude Trichet that lists a series of attacks on living standards and rights to be implemented by the Italian government.

"The hostage here was the threat not to buy Italian bonds. Within the troika, the ECB has been aggressively pushing austerity measures that have driven people into misery. The ECB has been a central co-conspirator in the silent coups being carried out in Greece and Italy, replacing elected governments with governments of bankers. Please drop the pretence, repeated here today, that the ECB is in some way independent; it is independent only of any democratic check and any accountability to ordinary people" Murphy concluded.

GUE/NGL Press Contacts:

David Lundy +32 485 50 58 12

Gay Kavanagh +32 473 84 23 20

david.lundy@europarl.europa.eu

gabrielle.kavanagh@europarl.europa.eu

European United Left / Nordic Green Left

European Parliamentary Group

www.guengl.eu