The decisions taken on 12 March, which were said to have missed their target, have often been compared unfavourably with the successful “package” of 18 March. However, I want to stress that they are complementary. On 12 March, the ECB decided to make almost EUR 3,000 billion – ¼ of euro area GDP – available to banks through “TLTRO III” operations that provide refinancing at a negative interest rate (that can be as low -0.75% if banks at least maintain their stock of outstanding loans) for an amount of up to 50% of lending to the economy, essentially to ISEs and SMEs. On 18 March, we further decided to launch an exceptional asset purchase envelope of EUR 750 billion for those that obtain their financing through the markets, namely governments and large corporations. This totally unprecedented Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme (PEPP) aims at avoiding a positive shock on long-term interest rates associated with the exceptional expense of the public health crisis. It also comes on top of the EUR 300 billion of asset purchases that had already been planned. Also unprecedented is that the ECB has thus accorded itself flexibility, where necessary, on three fronts: between public and private sector  Page 4 of 8 securities, between countries for public sector securities, and with regard to the issuer holdings limit of 33% on each public sector security. The Eurosystem also decided, quickly and forcefully, to activate its macro- and microprudential levers to help euro area financial institutions optimise their capacities to finance businesses.
Our arrangement – currently the most generous and costly in Europe – should avoid what has started to happen in the United States: ten million job losses in fifteen days and possibly a lot more tomorrow; it protects employees and their incomes and maintains production capacities for the future recovery. The measures also include state-guaranteed loans, up to a total of  Page 3 of 8 EUR 300 billion, repayable over one to five years and for an amount covering up to 25% of annual revenue. Overall, banks are playing their part, but the Credit Mediation Scheme’s services, under the aegis of the Banque de France, are involved and ready to assist any businesses experiencing difficulties. Already, each week we are receiving over ten times more cases than last year. I will now turn to the monetary measures of this cash shield. All over the world, the major central banks have taken bold measures to guarantee financing for businesses in the short term, through purchases of commercial paper, and in the medium term, through purchases of corporate bonds. In this respect, the ECB was among the first to lead the way. The ECB also stands out in that it has the capacity to provide banks with immediate and almost unlimited liquidity, so that the banks can in turn finance all the economic players: businesses, government and households. To do so, during the course of two successive meetings the ECB took some exceptional decisions.