ECB besieged by protests as Draghi opens $1.4 billion tower

By Angela Cullen & Richard Weiss

As the European Central Bank prepares to inaugurate its new headquarters four months after moving in, more than 10,000 protesters are seeking to spoil the party.

Frankfurt, the euro area's financial capital and home of the common currency, is bracing for demonstrations and sit-ins on Wednesday at locations throughout the city by anti-austerity groups and organizations sympathizing with the plight of Greece. At the ECB's 1.3 billion-euro ($1.4 billion) premises in the east end, police have erected barbed wire and barricades to keep the protesters at least 10 meters (33 feet) away.

Rioters set several cars, including a police vehicle, and garbage containers alight, set off smoke bombs and threw stones, glass and corrosive substances, leaving a trail of destruction and blocking roads in the city center, Frankfurt police said in Twitter postings. Protesters said police deployed tear gas.

"We were moving toward the ECB and then tear gas cartridges were fired from the police lines," said Martin Dolzer, a member of the Left party from Hamburg. The smoke "spread over a broad area; it was a very strong irritant."

Police are equipped with pepper spray and it's possible they used the substance in defense, said Claudia Rogalski, a police spokeswoman.

'Violent outbreaks'

The first incidents occurred "shortly after 6 a.m.," she said. "There have been violent outbreaks at several locations in which police have been attacked."

Nine days after the ECB started buying sovereign debt in a 1.1 trillion-euro plan to revive inflation and rescue the economy, protesters are laying the blame for recession and unemployment in the 19-nation euro area at the doors...