(AGI) Rome, Jan 21 - The euro is at a turning point. OnThursday European Central Bank (ECB) policy makers will meet todecide whether or not to embark on quantitative easing (QE) ina bid to combat deflation and kick-start the economy throughbank funding. This will be a landmark decision, and the 21policy makers are divided. It will fall to Mario Draghi to tryand minimise dissent. The Bundesbank and other Eurosystem"hawks" - Holland Luxemburg and some Eastern European countries- are resolutely against the measure. Mr Draghi could go for aninitial figure of around 500 billion euros, or focus on aprogramme that would envisage bond buying to the tune of 50billion euros a month for at least one year. The decision doesnot need to be unanimous, but too slim a majority in dealingwith a provision of this magnitude would impact negatively onthe ECB's monetary policy and could undermine the effects ofQE. It is an extraordinary measure, and would be additional tolong-term refinancing operations (LTRO), targeted longer-termrefinancing operations (TLTRO), asset-backed securities (ABS)and covered bonds. It is a monetary policy tool as-yet unusedin Europe, but widely used by the Federal Reserve, the Bank ofEngland and the Bank of Japan, and is a maxi-programme of assetbuying, particularly public debt bonds and bank bonds, financedwith newly-created currency and designed to boost economicliquidity in order to stimulate growth. Central banks, the ECBin this case, generally guarantee acquisitions by mutualisingthe risk of potential default. However, Mr Draghi may proposethat at least some of the QE risks are taken on by nationalbanks. The Organisation for Economic Co-operation andDevelopment (OECD) has said it would be wise for the ECB tolaunch unlimited bond buying. OECD Secretary-General AngelGurria told the Davos summit that it was up to Mr Draghi todecide, as he had done up to now, and that he did notanticipate him capping bond buying. He was not talking aboutthe 500 billion euros, but tailoring it to as much as needed.European markets closed positive ahead of Thursday's meeting,with London up 1.63 percent at 6,728 points, Milan up 1.64percent at 19,981 points and Frankfurt up 0.41 percent at10,299 points. Paris rose 0.87 percent to 4,484 points andMadrid gained 0.5 percent. The euro closed slightly higher at1.1603 dollars and 136.57 yen. . .