If the ECB had not set up the government bond programme and politicians had done too little to remedy the problems, causing the crisis to escalate, wouldn’t the ECB have had to intervene anyway to stabilise the financial system? I don’t believe that the system would have collapsed if the ECB had not set up the government bond programme.
In the past, many euro-area countries coped with yields of 7% or more – not just for new bond issues but also on average. Today, the affected countries could likewise ride out higher yields on new issues for a certain length of time.