When further negotiations about the European Stability Mechanism, the permanent replacement for the EFSF, did not provide for the purchasing of bonds in the secondary market, the ECB’s patience ran out. It was time for Frankfurt to draw the line. The public side of the ECB’s new harder stance was interest rate policy. As the eurozone crisis heated up again in April and July 2011, the ECB, in one of the most misguided decisions in the history of monetary policy, raised rates.28
