Mario Draghi’s absence leaves a hole in US summit of finance chiefs

EUROPEAN Central Bank boss Mario Draghi has snubbed the annual Jackson Hole meeting of central bankers, blaming a heavy workload for the decision.

Draghi had been expected to speak at the gathering this week in the US state of Wyoming, but it falls just as ECB policymakers look to tie up a new bond-­buying scheme aimed at tackling the eurozone debt crisis.

The Jackson Hole summit kicks off on Friday, while the European Central Bank is due to hold a meeting next Thursday where key aspects of any government bond purchases will be discussed.

An ECB spokesman said that Draghi had decided not to head across the Atlantic “because of the heavy workload foreseen in the next few days”.

None of the ECB’s six-member executive board, the core of the broader 23-man governing council, will attend the gathering of top policymakers, hosted by the US Federal Reserve.

However, Bundesbank chief Jens Weidmann still plans to go, the German central bank said.

The ECB is being forced to take a greater role in tackling the eurozone crisis while governments negotiate legal and political hurdles to co-ordinating a longer-term response, but the Bundesbank wants to limit the scope of ECB action.

ECB policymaker Joerg Asmussen stressed on Monday that the bank’s policymakers were still working on operational and technical details of the latest bond-buying plan, aimed at easing the crippling borrowing costs facing Italy and Spain.

He did not state when the ECB would begin buying bonds, but he made clear the plan could go ahead despite the opposition from Germany.

Weidmann’s predecessor as Bundesbank boss, Axel Weber, quit last year in protest at the ECB’s previous, now dormant bond-buy plan.