"It is absolutely misleading to report on decisions, which have not yet been taken and also on individual views, which have not yet been discussed by the ECB's governing council," an ECB spokesman said.
Der Spiegel newsweekly reported on Sunday that the ECB was planning to set a limit on the borrowing costs of individual countries and intervene on the markets to maintain this level.
Spain and Italy have seen their borrowing costs shoot up during the eurozone crisis to levels that forced Greece, Portugal and Ireland to seek a bailout.
The so-called spread, or difference, between benchmark German bonds and those issued by debt-wracked countries would be decisive for the proposed rate cap, Spiegel said.
Earlier, Germany had poured cold water on the reported plan, terming it "very problematic."
"Purely theoretically and speaking in the abstract, such an instrument would of course be very problematic but I am not aware of any plans in this direction," said Martin Kotthaus, a spokesman for Germany's finance ministry.
"You know that we basically do not comment on the ECB, which is an independent institution, but I can still say that I do not know about these plans," added Kotthaus in a regular government briefing.
The ECB spokesman said it was "also wrong to speculate on the shape of future ECB interventions. Monetary policy is independent and undertaken strictly within the ECB mandate," he insisted.
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