What is shuffling around bad or weak debts from a weaker eurozone member to the ECB known as?
Rescue operations involving sovereign debt have included temporarily moving bad or weak assets off the balance sheets of the weak member banks into the balance sheets of the European Central Bank. Such action is viewed as monetisation and can be seen as an inflationary threat, whereby the strong member countries of the ECB shoulder the burden of monetary expansion (and potential inflation) to save the weak member countries. Most central banks prefer to move weak assets off their balance sheets with some kind of agreement as to how the debt will continue to be serviced. This preference has typically led the ECB to argue that the weaker member countries must: