At the outset, the COVID-19 crisis had a severe impact on the euro area economy and capital markets, bringing inflation into negative territory and threatening financial stability. Faced with this situation, the ECB adopted extraordinary measures to secure favourable financing conditions in all euro area countries.
The most significant of these measures was the pandemic emergency purchase programme (PEPP), whereby the ECB – over a two-year period – purchased private and public sector securities amounting to around € trillion. [8]  In contrast to previous ECB asset purchase programmes, the PEPP was given the flexibility needed for purchases to be calibrated over time, across asset classes and among jurisdictions.