Today it is appropriate to reflect on the motives that prompted the ECB to adopt these measures, to review their progress and, lastly, to analyse the financial and macroeconomic impact they have had, both in Spain and in the euro area overall. COVID-19 emerged in the euro area in a setting of low inflation and broad monetary stimulus, with policy rates at all-time lows, new net purchases of assets under the asset purchase programme (APP) and a schedule set for the targeted longer-term refinancing operations (TLTROs-III). From the outset, the ECB faced three significant pandemic-related challenges: first, the need to stabilise financial markets throughout the euro area, to head off cross-country financial fragmentation; second, to protect the supply of bank credit, which is especially important for funding for households and SMEs; and third, to endeavour to neutralise the downward pressures on inflation stemming from the COVID-19 crisis, in accordance with the ECB’s price stability mandate enshrined in the EU treaties. Against this backdrop, the ECB adopted a series of measures that may be grouped into two main blocks: first, those designed to encourage the supply of bank credit to the real economy; and second, those relating to the asset purchase programmes. Taking the first block, the ECB approved a broad raft of measures to provide liquidity to banks so that they, in turn, were able to ensure access to credit for households and firms. These included, in particular, the improvements to the conditions of the TLTROs-III.
Jean-Claude Trichet: Interview in Il Sole 24 Ore Interview with Mr Jean-Claude Trichet, President of the European Central Bank, in Il Sole 24 Ore, conducted by Mr Beda Romano and published on 9 April 2010. *  *  *  Il Sole 24 Ore: Greece is in dire straits as it struggles with a huge public debt and a fall in competitiveness. Some market players and newspaper commentators see Italy as being the next in line to experience a financial crisis in the euro zone. Trichet: Of course, Italy is not at all in the same situation of Greece. Your country has shown resilience in this difficult period. In particular it was able to contain its yearly budget deficit and it has committed to get back to a sustainable situation according to the European rules. The ECB strongly encourages it to implement rigorously this programme. This said, the current crisis has demonstrated that all 16 countries of the euro zone must work hard, in a determined and efficient way, in order to make their economies more flexible and elevate their growth potential thanks to determined structural reforms. Improving labour productivity in particular is good for export growth and job creation. If this had been done more efficiently in the last years better results would have been attained in Italy as well as in the euro area as a whole.