Debt crisis: live

_{Italy's PM Mario Monti speaks at seminar Towards a Joint Future for Europe in Helsinki on Thursday (Photo: Reuters)}

08.31 Most investors share Mr Peston's sentiment. A poll conducted by Societe Generale shows that 69pc of its client base think that Mario Draghi will not announce anything substantive today. When asked if the ECB will disappoint, one investor said:

I'm in the camp who thinks Draghi was doing verbal intervention only. ECB will maybe implement some weak purchases program and some slight rate cuts but no more than that, which will be negative (at best neutral) for EUR. Those expecting a bazooka and a EUR rally will be disappointed.

Another said:

Initially yes in that won't announce anything concrete on bond purchases and markets will sell off on that but think once all the info is assimilated (I expect he will announce the intention to buy bonds in concert with EFSF further down the line but probably contingent on MOU in place) and Q+A is done we will recover some of the losses as expect a much stronger tone from him in Q+A than normally the case. So kind of expecting a decent sell-off first then somewhat of a recovery but prob overall down day for risk assets from immediate pre ECB levels so overall small disappointment but nothing major.

While one client declared:

Always.

08.22 Robert Peston, the BBC's business editor, has been speaking on Radio 4's Today programme, where he has compared Mr Draghi's comments in London last week to Dirty Harry warning short sellers to "go ahead punk, make my day - because I can make your life very hard".

But he adds that unlike Dirty Harry, Mr Draghi doesn't have the biggest gun - that's reserved for Germany, which has made clear on several occasions that it doesn't like "the idea of spending unlimited sums propping up Italian and Spanish governments".

He predicts that the ECB will disappoint today, with "months of uncertainty" to come as the eurozone "lurch[es] from crisis to crisis".

_{Mario Draghi may be like Dirty Harry, but he doesn't have the biggest gun, according to the BBC's buisness editor Robert Peston (Photo: Rex)}

08.10 But what exactly can the ECB do? Quite a lot, says Angela Monaghan, who walks us through the central bank's options to "save the euro". Top of the list? Buying Spanish and Italian debt:

The ECB might opt to expand its Securities Markets Programme, which allows the central bank to buy distressed government bonds. The Bank has in the past bought a total of around €210bn of bonds in Greece, Portugal and Ireland, and later Spain and Italy. Economists believe that any further purchases would have to be on a far bigger scale to make an impact on Spanish and Italian bonds markets and bring borrowing costs down. Rather than limiting the programme, they say, the ECB would have to make it unlimited and permanent. Germany has long-opposed the SMP, but it hasn’t stopped the Bank in the past.

However, there is a sense that the ECB will only be prepared to intervene in a specific sovereign bond market at this point if that sovereign has first appealed for aid from the region’s rescue fund. Spain has so far resisted such a move for fear of repercussions. This could prove a major stumbling block. Nonetheless, the ECB could always announce its willingness to act should countries satisfy that condition.

08.05 So will he, or won't he? After vowing last week to do "whatever it takes to preserve the euro," traders, economists, and journalists alike will be hanging on to every word uttered by Mario Draghi at his European Central Bank (ECB) press conference today to see if he puts his money where his mouth is.

08.00 Good morning and welcome back to our live coverage of the European debt crisis.

Debt crisis live: archive