The European Central Bank (ECB) raised its emergency funding for Greek banks on 16 July, in a step to help them partially reopen after eurozone governments agreed to grant Athens a new three-year loan.
ECB President Mario Draghi said the banks governing council had increased emergency liquidity assistance (ELA) by €900m (£629m, $982m) for one week at the request of the Bank of Greece.
Several positive things have happened that could justify us to increase the ELA we approved today. Incidentally I didnt say how much. We substantially accommodated the request put forward by the bank of Greece recalibrated over one week. The increase would be €900m over one week, Draghi told reporters at a news conference.
Things have changed. We had a series of news with the approval of the bridging financial package with the votes, the various votes in various parliaments – to begin with, in the Greek parliament – which have now restored the conditions a raise in the ELA, he added.
A temporary €7bn EU loan has been agreed in principle but technical details will take until 17 July to iron out, eurozone officials said.
Draghi said the ECB had always acted on the assumption that Greece would remain a member of the 19-nation currency area, but that depended entirely on the Greek authorities and other member states, not on the central bank.
The ECB continues to act on the assumptions that Greece is and will remain a member of the eurozone, he said.
Earlier, the ECB held interest rates steady and Draghi said the central bank would fully implement its quantitative easing government bond-buying program up to September 2016 to support a broadening economic recovery and help the eurozone return to its inflation target of just below 2%.
Based on our regularly economic and monetary analysis in line with our full guidance we decided to keep the key ECB interest rates unchanged, he added, promising more action if needed.
