Another breath of fresh air for Greece: after yesterday's clear up on the now close agreement with creditors, the European Central Bank today further raised the limit of Ela funds by just under one billion euro (Emergency lending assistance) to be made available to Greek credit institutions, which have long been excluded from the traditional weekly repurchase agreement auctions granted by the European Central Bank.
This was reported by Greek banking sources, specifying that the council consulted via conference call yesterday evening at the end of the summit of heads of state of the euro area and will return to do so if necessary. It's about the fourth ECB intervention on ELA funds in the last seven days (the second in two days after yesterday's): the liquidity available to Greek credit institutions had been raised last week to approximately 86 billion, a ceiling further raised yesterday by another two billion and which today reaches almost 89 billion in total.
Normally the ECB council decides on the program on a weekly basis, however since the bank run began in Greece negotiations with creditors have reached their climax the bankers consulted almost every day. The Eurotower "ATM" therefore keeps the Greek banks and economy alive, waiting for the Eurogroup on Wednesday and then the summit of heads of state and government on Thursday and Friday to reach an agreement, even if the The operation desired by Draghi is not without discontent, within the ECB itself.
According to an inside source the European Central Bank “is, in effect, funding the bank run. Nobody grants loans to Greek banks anymore. They keep afloat with Ela funds. A capital control should have been decided a long time ago”. For the Italian banker, a few days from a decisive agreement for the salvation of Greece, there could therefore be accusations of an overly "political" role.
