By Friedrich Geiger
FRANKFURT--German central bank President Jens Weidmann didn't
vote in favor of the European Central Bank's large-scale
bond-buying program, according to excerpts of a newspaper interview
to be published Sunday.
The ECB's governing council, of which Mr. Weidmann is a member,
approved the plan to buy more than EUR1 trillion ($1.16 trillion)
of assets including government bonds by a majority. The plan is
aimed at boosting inflation in the eurozone.
But Mr. Weidmann said he didn't see a need for the program,
according to excerpts of an interview to be published Sunday in
German newspaper Welt am Sonntag.
"Inflation is very low at the moment, but this is driven by the
low oil price. Therefore there are many reasons to assume that the
low inflation is a temporary phenomenon," the Bundesbank president
is quoted as saying.
The impact of the ECB's quantitative-easing program will likely
be smaller than in the U.S., where interest rates were initially
higher when the Federal Reserve started a similar program and
because U.S. companies use capital markets for their funding to a
larger extent, Mr. Weidmann added, according to the newspaper.
Write to Friedrich Geiger at friedrich.geiger@wsj.com