28. Agrees that the ECB’s action, which came in addition to structural reforms and the consolidation of public finances, has ‘decisively contributed to the stability of the euro area’; recognises that this action has had the effect of decreasing unsustainably high financing costs for some Member States through the Securities Market Programme (SMP) and providing a liquidity backstop for sovereign debt markets through Outright Monetary Transactions (OMTs), averting a melt-down of the banking sector and helping to sever the link between banks and sovereigns, limiting speculation on sovereign debt and temporarily reducing excessive spreads; ...[+++] considers, however, that a lack of sustainable growth and high (and still growing) levels of private and public debt in many Member States mean that ’a carefully managed process of deleveraging’ is required; agrees with the Commission that the improvement of the health of the banking sector must remain a priority; welcomes the establishment by the Commission, according to thecommitment it made to Parliament in the declaration annexed to the two-pack, of the high-level group chaired by Gertrude Tumpel-Gugerell to deepen the analysis on, and assess thoroughly the partial substitution of national debt issuance through joint issuance in the form of a redemption fund and eurobills, considering the pros and cons of the different options ; looks forward to the report of the high-level group;

On 8 December 2011 and 20 June 2012 the Governing Council decided on additional enhanced credit support measures to support bank lending and liquidity in the euro area money market, including measures set out in Decision ECB/2011/25 of 14 December 2011 on additional temporary measures relating to Eurosystem refinancing operations and eligibility of collateral (2).

19. Welcomes the ECB's longer-term refinancing operations (LTRO); calls on the ECB to further act in a decisive way in addressing the current euro-area debt crisis by maintaining price stability while at the same time minimising negative spill-over effects on the real economy and the investments that the banking sector's liquidity problems might generate; believes that the banking sector must take the necessary steps to address its structural weaknesses with regard to longer-term liquidity risks in order to restore investor confidence and therefore to avoid the need for the ECB to intervene so massively in future; considers that the b ...[+++]ank's operational framework should be shaped in such a way that a proportion of the grants would be made available for development purposes and to support small and medium-sized enterprises;

As you know, in October 2008 in response to the further intensification of the financial crisis after the default of Lehman Brothers, the ECB has introduced a number of bank-based (given the financial structure of the euro area) non-standard monetary policy measures, including fixed-rate full-allotment procedures in all its refinancing operations.