European Central Bank to gather after borrowing costs rise

By The Associated Press

The European Central Bank’s rate-setting council will hold an unscheduled meeting “to discuss market conditions” as borrowing costs for several countries have risen after the bank said it would raise interest rates. The bank announced the hikes in July and September without specifying how it would protect countries if borrowing costs rose excessively — as they did in the European debt crisis in 2010-2012. That’s a concern for heavily indebted governments, most notably Italy. The spreads for Italian and Spanish debt over safe German government debt — a key fear index for the 19-country eurozone — have risen after the ECB made only vague promises to prevent interest rates in countries from rising above the bank’s benchmarks.