I find it strange that ECB Governing Council members can be found giving only vaguely negative comments on ECB debt cancellation. Anyone who has followed the ECJ's deliberations on monetary financing should be clear, this option is 100% illegal. https://www.ft.com/content/0295ccb3-bc57-415c-89f7-5d4e63a64c88

And no "swapping debt for a perpetual bond with a zero interest rate" is not a technical get around. The ECJ are not stupid. Read the judgements.

Nor is there any particular need for this discussion. Even forgetting the current reduction in net debt interest costs from CBs holding sovereign bonds, gross interest costs in the euro area area are at historic lows.

This whole debate is barking up the wrong macroeconomic tree. The euro area's problem is not that it has too much sovereign debt but that it is stuck with out-dated fiscal rules that restrict members from running the high levels of public debt that are currently justified.

Here's my discussion of these issues from last month's briefing paper for MEPs. (Particularly disappointing to see Sassoli quasi-endorsing debt cancellation.) https://www.europarl.europa.eu/cmsdata/214968/01.WHELAN_final.pdf