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For the eurozone as a whole, Mr Trichet stresses measures it has taken to support banks – last week it announced two offers of unlimited one-year loans, on top of the unlimited weekly, monthly and three monthly liquidity already available. But he makes clear that the ECB will not act as a “lender of last resort” to governments. Its government bond buying programme – which has seen it buying more than €160bn mostly in southern European government debt – is aimed simply at ensuring its monetary policy decisions are “transmitted” via functioning bond markets into the real economy. “I think that the ECB has done all it could to be up to its responsibilities in exceptional circumstances…The ultimate backstop is, of course, the governments. To do anything that would let governments off their responsibilities would be a recipe for failure.”
