Draghi Signals ECB May Step Up Debt Measures If EU Considers Fiscal Union, By Jeff Black and Simone Meier - Dec 1, 2011 5:27 AM MT, Bloomberg News

European Central Bank President Mario Draghi signaled the ECB could do more to fight the debt crisis as long as governments push the euro area toward a fiscal union.

“A new fiscal compact” is “definitely the most important element to start restoring credibility,” Draghi said in an address to the European Parliament in Brussels today. “Other elements might follow, but the sequencing matters. It is first and foremost important to get a commonly shared fiscal compact right.” Draghi didn’t specify what more the ECB could do and said the central bank’s bond purchases “can only be limited.”
ECB balance sheet hits new high last week, Nov. 29, 2011, 9:59 a.m. EST, Marketwatch/WSJ

The balance sheet of the Eurosystem, which comprises the Frankfurt-based European Central Bank and the 17 euro-zone national central banks, grew by EUR26.2 billion compared with the previous week, settling at EUR2.42 trillion. This was EUR503.6 billion larger than a year earlier.
Net lending to credit institutions decreased by EUR10.4 billion to EUR189.7 billion last week. Still, lending at its main refinancing operations rose. Last Wednesday, a main refinancing operation of EUR230.3 billion matured and a new one of EUR247.2 billion settled. Earlier Tuesday, the ECB said it lent EUR265.5 billion to banks in seven-day funds, the highest demand for seven-day funds since June 2009.
The Eurosystem's holdings of securities held for monetary policy purposes increased by about EUR9 billion to EUR263.3 billion, the ECB said. The increase was due to the net result of EUR8.6 billion in settled purchases under the ECB's Securities Markets Program, the formal name for its program of buying euro-zone government bonds on the secondary market, and EUR0.5 billion under the ECB's second covered bond purchase program, as well as the redemption of securities under the SMP.
ECB Website, Home > Monetary Policy > Instruments > Open market operations

The Eurosystem’s regular open market operations - i.e. one-week and three-month euro liquidity-providing operations - serve to steer short-term interest rates, to manage the liquidity situation, and to signal the stance of monetary policy in the euro area.

Currently, the regular operations are complemented by euro liquidity-providing operations with a maturity of (around) one month as well as US-dollar liquidity-providing operations. In addition, until 30 June 2010, the Eurosystem purchased euro-denominated covered bonds under the Covered Bond Purchase Programme (CBPP) and, since 10 May 2010, it has conducted interventions in debt markets under the Securities Markets Programme (SMP). The liquidity provided through the SMP is currently absorbed by weekly collections of fixed-term deposits.