Draghi says ECB not to blame for austerity amid protests

Mario Draghi has defended the ECB’s actions amid violent anti-austerity protests. “European unity is being strained,” Mr Draghi said at the inauguration ceremony on Wednesday.

“The ECB has become a focal point for those frustrated with this situation. This may not be a fair charge - our action has been aimed precisely at cushioning the shocks suffered by the economy - but as the central bank of the whole euro area, we must listen very carefully.”

Draghi said that with some protesters arguing that Europe is doing too little and populist parties saying it is doing too much, the answer lies in further, though pragmatic, integration.

“The answer is not to unwind integration, nor is it to hold out an unattainable vision of where integration should lead,“ he said. “It is to complete our monetary union in the areas where it can and needs to be completed.“

Thousands of anti-austerity protesters have gathered in Frankfurt ahead of the inauguration ceremony for the European Central Bank’s new €1.3 billion headquarters.

At least two police cars were set on fire on Wednesday morning as authorities confronted protesters.

Police said one officer was injured in a stone-throwing incident near the city’s Alte Oper opera house.

Demonstrators sought to blockade the inauguration ceremony for the European Central Bank’s new headquarters in a protest over the bank’s role in supervising efforts to restrain spending and reduce debt in financially troubled countries such as Greece.

Police say most of the protesters, who include trade unionists and members of Germany’s Left Party, are expected to be peaceful during a day of rallies.

But they say a violence-prone element was using the march as cover for attacks on police and property.

Barbed wire

The ECB says it intends to remain “fully operational” despite police barricades and barbed wire around its headquarters but some employees might work from home.

Police have erected barbed wire and barricades to keep the protesters at least 10 meters (33 feet) away from the premises.

Protesters said police deployed tear gas. “We were moving toward the ECB and then tear gas cartridges were fired from the police lines,” said Martin Dolzer, a member of the Left party from Hamburg. The smoke “spread over a broad area; it was a very strong irritant.” Police are equipped with pepper spray and it’s possible they used the substance in defense, said Claudia Rogalski, a police spokeswoman.

The first incidents occurred “shortly after 6am,” she said. “There have been violent outbreaks at several locations in which police have been attacked.”

Nine days after the ECB started buying sovereign debt in a €1.1 trillion plan to revive inflation and rescue the economy, protesters are laying the blame for recession and unemployment in the euro area at the doors of ECB president Mr Draghi and German chancellor Angela Merkel.

A new government in Greece, led by the leftist Syriza party, is preparing emergency measures to boost liquidity as the cash-starved country braces for more than €2 billion in debt payments on Friday.

The country is unable to access bailout funding as it haggles over the terms of its aid program. Its lenders have been cut off from regular ECB finance lines and pushed onto emergency credit from the Greek central bank. “In the past, we protested against things like the rescue of the banks in Europe,” Werner Renz, a representative of protest group Attac, said on Tuesday.

“The focus of our protests this year is on Greece. We need more of Athens in Europe and less of Berlin. There is no way Greece can repay all its debt. The situation can’t be solved by austerity alone.”

Agencies