Nowotny Says ECB Won’t Help Spain Without Bailout, Profil Says

European Central Bank Governing Council member Ewald Nowotny said Spain won’t get help from the ECB’s bond-purchase program if it doesn’t request a bailout first, according to an interview with Austria’s Profil magazine.

“If Spain doesn’t step under the safety umbrella, we can’t help it,” Nowotny said in the interview. The bond-buying plan “can be an effective tool to contain the crisis and to stabilize expectations. However, politics has to play along, so that this instrument can also be used positively -- this is the only way to convince the markets,” he said.

Nowotny, who is Austria’s central bank governor, also said that policy makers and politicians underestimated the contagion risks of Greece, according to the interview.

To contact the reporters on this story: Zoe Schneeweiss in Vienna at zschneeweiss@bloomberg.net; Stefan Riecher in Frankfurt at sriecher@bloomberg.net

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Craig Stirling at cstirling1@bloomberg.net