ECB president Draghi visits German Parliament to defend euro crisis actions, bond-buying plans

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The President of the European Central Bank, Mario Draghi, right, and the Bank\'s member of the Board, Joerg Asmussen, left, arrive for a meeting with members of the federal parliament, Bundestag, in Berlin, Germany, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2012. Draghi meets with German lawmakers to discuss his plans to buy bonds of ailing eurozone members. (AP Photo/Michael Sohn)

BERLIN – The European Central Bank’s president, Mario Draghi, is holding a meeting with German lawmakers following his decision to launch plans to buy unlimited amounts of struggling EU countries’ bonds.

The ECB’s plans to buy bonds to help lower countries’ borrowing costs met with widespread skepticism in Germany when they were announced last month. Those countries would first have to apply for help from European rescue funds — which impose conditions for granting aid.

Draghi plans a closed-doors meeting Wednesday in Germany’s Bundestag, or lower house of Parliament, with members of the budget, finance and European affairs committees. He and the Bundestag’s speaker, Norbert Lammert, plan to make public statements afterward.

Chancellor Angela Merkel’s government supports the bond-buying plans but the head of Germany’s central bank, the Bundesbank, opposes them.

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