Small countries and the European Central Bank

A good article about how the voting works in the European Central Bank. This was not a big deal before, but now people are wondering how future votes about issues such as the ECB buying government bonds will go.

The current voting system at the ECB gives a vote per country, which means that the smaller European countries can stand up to the larger countries like Germany.

The good news is that this means that it is very unlikely for the ECB to stop purchasing government bonds in the near future, which means that a funding crisis in the immediate future out of the question.

Since the ECB cannot bid on bonds directly, they scoop them up in the secondary market right after the auction. As market participants learn that there is a easy profit to be made, the auctions should improve.

Of course, Germany could always got batshit crazy and leave the Euro, but such a financial earthquake would probably do more damage to Germany than anyone else.