The European institutions and the EU Member States reacted swiftly, creatively and resolutely, and the ECB played a vital role. Our monetary policy response was centred around two key pillars. First, in March 2020 we launched the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP) with an initial envelope of € billion.
But over the course of the year, incoming data pointed to a more pronounced impact of the pandemic on the euro area economy and a more protracted weakness in inflation than previously envisaged.