ECB would welcome euro zone budget: Draghi

FRANKFURT (Reuters) - The European Central Bank would welcome a common budget for 19 countries sharing the euro, especially if it provided macroeconomic stabilisation functions, ECB President Mario Draghi said in a letter on Wednesday.

"A common budgetary instrument could, if appropriately designed, increase the economic resilience of the individual participating Member States and of the euro area as a whole," Draghi wrote in response to a query from a member of the European Parliament.

"Rather than creating conflicts of interest between policy areas, in this type of situation a fiscal capacity of this nature could support the single monetary policy in stabilising the economy and thus promote price stability," Draghi said.

 

(Reporting by Balazs Koranyi; Editing by Janet Lawrence)