FRANKFURT, Dec 8 (Reuters) - The head of the European Central Bank Jean-Claude Trichet said on Monday that he was not in favour of euro zone countries issuing joint bonds.
The idea for a euro zone super-bond has been floated as a way of helping countries fund economic stimulus packages.
Analysts have speculated that even if not all of the big euro zone countries were involved, other member states could still group together.
"We are not ourselves in favour of issuing securities, treasuries that will be joint and several," Trichet told the European Parliament.
"We consider it is good that each particular state, each particular treasury has its own refinancing and has its own way of being on the market."
In a recent note, analysts at UBS said that there was still only a small probability that joint issuance would happen although chances would increase if government bond spreads continued to widen.
"If bond spreads follow the lead of the credit default swaps -- and we expect spreads to do so at least partially -- then we should anticipate further discussion of common bond issuance."
"If the pressure on spreads becomes sufficiently strong, common issuance would also offer a more palatable political route for fiscal transfers between countries than donation of taxpayers' money," UBS said.
While the political hurdles would be difficult to overcome, UBS said one of the main advantages of common issuance would be that it could reduce the current high premiums investors require to buy some countries' debt. (Reporting by Marc Jones; Editing by Ruth Pitchford)