In the last two weeks the European Central Bank (ECB) decided to launch new LTRO and T-LTRO programs to ensure liquidity to the banking sector as well as to small- and medium-sized firms (March 12, 2020) and to temporarily strengthen its ‘quantitative easing’ policy (March 18, 2020), which is centered on the purchases of government bonds and of a large set of private financial assets (including commercial papers). Moreover, the Single Supervisory Mechanism improved the positive impact of the ECB’s initiatives by temporarily weakening the capital requirements and the assessment of the non-performing exposures of the European banking sector. Finally, the European Commission (EC) decided to suspend the European coordination mechanism of the national fiscal policies, that is, the Stability and Growth Pact (SGP).

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