Central Bank, European Central Bank | featured news

Germany and France clashed on Wednesday over whether the ECB should take bolder steps to stem the euro zone debt crisis, with Chancellor Angela Merkel issuing one of her starkest warnings yet against fiddling with the central bank's strict inflation-fighting mandate.

A top board member of the European Central Bank unexpectedly resigned on Friday in what analysts saw as further evidence of the deep divisions over how to resolve Europe’s growing debt crisis. The move immediately rattled European markets and the euro, which slipped to a six-month low against the dollar. The European Stoxx and German DAX indexes tumbled 3.5 percent.

European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny does not expect the U.S. economy to enter a double-dip recession and is more concerned about fast-growing developing markets, he told a newspaper.

The European Central Bank said on Thursday it opposed forcing private creditors to take part in debt relief for Greece, pushing back against Germany, which has demanded a bond swap to lengthen Greek debt maturities.

The European Central Bank is poised to raise interest rates from a record low 1.0 percent on Thursday and more is likely to follow but, fearful of heaping more pain on the euro zone's stragglers, it will give few clues about when the next move will come.

European Central Bank policymakers underscored the case for an April rate hike on Thursday as Portugal's political crisis raised the prospect of another spell of reluctant ECB bond market intervention.