Constâncio was testifying in the committee of economic and monetary affairs of the European Parliament, in Brussels, where he was queried by Pedro Silva Pereira, a member for Portugal’s Socialist Party, on the recent drop in the volume of ECB purchases of bonds issued by some Eurozone states’ bonds.
In reply, the vice president said that no distinction is made between member states and that for each, a volume of purchases for the programme as a whole is defined. In the case of some countries, such as Portugal, he stressed, the purchases made in 2010 and 2011 - before the programme was launched but when Portuguese bond yields were soaring - “count towards the stock” in total.
The volume bought is thus “recalibrated” so that the maximum is not exceeded, and so that purchases may continue through to the end of the programme, which is foreseen for end-2017.
The ECB in March bought €663 million in Portuguese public debt, slightly up on February’s €656 million, which was the lowest amount since the start of the bond-buying programme.
Since March 2015, when the ECB started the programme - a form of “quantitative easing” to stimulate the economy without lowering benchmark lending rates - it has acquired a cumulative €26.617 billion in Portuguese state bonds.
In the Eurozone as a whole, the ECB in March bought some €80.286 billion in debt, of which €68.814 billion was public.
In December the institution decided to extend the programme until the end of this year, but reducing purchases from April to around €60 billion from €80 billion previously.
The yields on Portuguese public debt in the secondary market were on Monday up across the curve, with the benchmark 10-year bond yielding 3.889 percent.
However, Monday’s sale of €1 billion in Variable-Rate Treasury Bonds (OTRV), aimed at the general public, saw demand 1.42 times supply.
According to the results announced, of the 63,017 investors 96 percent were resident in Portugal.