MEPs held a debate with the ECB's President, Mario Dragui, who defended again the ECB's traditional role, as laid down in the EU treaty. He also took the opportunity to set out his vision for better risk analysis and also the steps needed to emerge from the crisis.

The ECB's President, Mario Dragui, defended the ECB's role as laid down in the EU treaty, and resisted calls for it to tackle the Eurozone crisis more aggressively, in his first exchange as ECB President with the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee. He also underlined that the fiscal compact deal was a breakthrough and there was time to pay less attention to credit ratings.

Mr Draghi took the opportunity to highlight that he does not have any doubt in the strength, permanence and irreversability of the Euro. He also told to MEPs that morbid speculators needed to be made aware of the potential cost of their actions. He actually added that it is time to move away from an automatic risk analysis process based solely on a mechanistic interpretation of credit rating agency opinions.

On the other hand, many MEPs pressed Mr Draghi on the need for growth. Sylvie Goulard, for instance contested the view that the fiscal compact was a step in the right direction on the grounds that it did not address the growth needs and lacked democratic processes. ECB's President answered her that austerity is not avoidable and the EU need structural reforms to ensure growth. The European Parliament committed to work on economic governance, both at the legislative level as co-legislator of two pieces of law to beef up fiscal surveillance by the Commission. The proposals on the economic governance have already been adopted by the Council.