STRBSKE PLESO, Slovakia, Oct 6 - Italy is paying the price for raising its deficit targets via higher borrowing costs, European Central Bank policymaker Klaas Knot said on Friday, telling governments to tighten their purse strings or face"market discipline".
The ECB can buy a country's bonds if it thinks it's coming under undue market pressure, as it did last year and at the height of the pandemic in 2020. The announcement caused the gap between Italy and Germany's 10-year bond yields to widen to 200.2 basis points this week, the widest since March, piling pressure on one of the euro zone's weakest borrowers at a time of already high borrowing costs.
"There is an unwillingness to be helpful in supporting us in trying to stabilise the euro area economy."