Europe

摘要

In the face of growing concerns about the condition of the banking sector and the risk of a severe credit crunch, the ECB brought forward a package of measures in December. The main new measure was the announcement of longer-term refinancing operations (LTRO) with a maturity of 36 months. This represents a significant shift from pre-crisis times when such operations were limited to three months, and reflects the risks connected with a large volume of maturing bank debt - totalling €800 billion this year.