Germany has full confidence in ECB: government spokesman

BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany has full confidence in the independence of the European Central Bank, government spokesman Georg Streiter said on Monday, amid expectations that the bank will take action to ease high borrowing costs for Spain and Italy.

"The German government has full trust in the independent operations of the ECB. The ECB is fulfilling its duties," Streiter told a regular news conference.

ECB president Mario Draghi said last week the bank would do whatever it deemed necessary, within its mandate, to save the euro, raising expectations in financial markets that it may resume buying bonds of troubled euro zone states in the secondary market - a policy Germany is deeply uneasy about.

Streiter also reiterated Berlin's opposition to euro bonds or any other form of mutualization of euro zone debt - a policy supported by some member states of the euro zone as a way to reduce their high borrowing costs.

He said he saw no grounds for launching legal action against the ECB over bond purchases, a suggestion made by Joerg-Uwe Hahn, a regional member of the Free Democrats, a junior partner in Chancellor Angela Merkel's centre-right coalition.

(Reporting by Erik Kirschbaum and Elisa Oddone, writing by Gareth Jones)