European Central Bank chief Mario Draghi told euro-zone governments on Friday to act fast to get their rescue fund up and running, expressing exasperation at their lack of progress in response to an escalating debt crisis.
The ECB is under intense pressure to play a greater role in tackling the euro-zone crisis. A Reuters poll of 50 bond strategists in Europe and the United States gave an even probability that it would eventually agree to print money.
But Draghi put the onus firmly on governments, saying they had failed to put into practice decisions underpinning the European Financial Stability Facility -- the rescue fund which they have promised to give more firepower without yet explaining how.
Many analysts believe the only way to stem the contagion in a crisis that began with Greece but now risks engulfing Italy, Spain and even France is for the ECB to buy up large quantities of bonds, effectively the sort of 'quantitative easing' undertaken by the U.S. and British central banks.
That would be a highly controversial break from its existing policy, where it offsets government bond purchases by draining liquidity from the system in separate operations.
While the ECB, with strong German support, is anxious to remain free from political interference and is resisting calls to take major action in response to the spreading debt crisis, it has made limited bond purchases that have steadied investors' nerves.
European shares trimmed losses, helped by falling Italian and Spanish bond yields after the ECB intervened again to buy debt in the secondary market on Friday.
Euro-zone governments have set a December deadline to strengthen the EFSF but these efforts have been undermined by delays, surging borrowing costs and scant investor interest.
Italian Prime Minister Mario Monti unveiled sweeping reforms to dig the country out of crisis and said Italians were confronting a "serious emergency".
Monti, who enjoys 75% support in opinion polls, comfortably won a vote of confidence in his new government in the Senate on Thursday, by 281 votes to 25.
He faces another confidence vote in the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house, on Friday, which he also expected to win comfortably.
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