OMT highlighted need for fiscal union, says Ashoka Mody

Ashoka Mody of the IMF outside the Department of Finance. Picture credit: Damien Eagers

Colm Kelpie

THE success of the European Central Bank's as yet unused bond buying programme in easing market fears reflects the need for a fiscal union, the IMF's former Ireland mission chief has said.

In a paper published by think-tank Bruegel, Ashoka Mody argued the ECB's Outright Monetary Transactions (OMT) programme was a "politically pragmatic tool" to diffuse the euro zone crisis which also exposed key fault lines in the architecture of the euro.