’ s important to come up with temporary plans to help firms, as has been done in the area of employment with the temporary layoffs [ in spanish : expedientes de regulacion temporal, or ertes ]. what is your opinion on the public loan guarantee programmes to enable the banking sector to finance firms with credit lines and loans? they are very important, of course. all countries have put in place loan guarantees for firms. this is a good thing. but we also have to avoid the fragmentation of the internal market. not all guarantees are identical. the european investment bank ( eib ), for example, is offering a very sound shared system of guarantees. we are now seeing national guarantee schemes and we should work towards making these converge to ensure that credit continues to flow, that banks ’ balance sheets remain healthy, and that we don ’ t see fragmentation along national lines. although different countries will always be given different ratings by the ratings agencies. 1 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches the ecb has been very active since the beginning of this crisis. do you think that what ’ s been done so far is enough? the ecb has intervened on three levels. first, we have provided liquidity to the banks, under very good conditions, and we have launched a package of temporary collateral easing measures. in addition, in our role as the single banking supervisor, we have given banks the flexibility to make use of the capital buffers they had built up, so that they can continue financing and providing credit to firms and households. and finally, we have expanded our monetary policy operations. in 2020, asset purchases will reach €1. 1 trillion ( mainly of public debt ) to avoid fragmentation of the euro area. spain will receive between €120 billion and €130 billion of this money. in the current crisis, this is the main financial shield for spain and the other euro area countries. but countries are staring down the barrel of increasing expenditures and decreasing revenues … countries will experience a deep recession that will have an impact on their public finances. this will entail greater funding needs, of between €1 trillion and €1. 5 trillion, an amount the likes of which we ’ ve probably never seen before. they will also issue public debt to finance themselves, which is precisely why the ecb ’ s intervention in the bond markets aims to avoid fragmentation at an extremely difficult time. the ecb balance sheet is overflowing with debt from euro area countries. where

4 bis central bankers'speeches play, europe is better equipped to respond to this unprecedented crisis. the agreement includes a generic reference to a future recovery fund that is yet to be defined. what criteria do you think it should meet? the ecb has always stressed the need for our economic and monetary union to be completed in order for the euro area to become more resilient. on the one hand, we need a european deposit insurance scheme so that savings have the same protections in every country. we ’ ve also called for progress in capital markets so that euro area firms have access to more sources of funding. and in the fiscal sphere, we need a shared budgetary instrument that completes the monetary union. the fund that has been proposed could go in that direction, but its size and how it is funded remain open to discussion and will depend on future decisions by governments. in any case, the determination to present a shared response is very significant, because it is a strong political signal, and also a strong signal to the markets. spain started the debate when it too voiced its opposition to the use of the esm. minister calvino has now stated that spain should not resort to using it and that, in any case, she only believes it is an option if conditionality is extremely low … before this crisis, spain was growing, it was competitive, its debt - to - gdp ratio was below 100 %, its government deficit was 2. 6 % and its unemployment rate stood at 14 %. currently it has been able to obtain the funding it requires on the markets, it is not experiencing any difficulties, and the spread against the german bund is 110 basis points. let ’ s hope that spain can maintain this relatively comfortable position. italy is not in the same position ; could that be why it is adopting a more combative stance? i don ’ t want to start making those kinds of comparisons. let ’ s come back to spain then. there is talk of making a political pact, like the moncloa pacts of 1977. what ’ s your opinion? are you in favour of pacts? i think we must always be in favour of political pacts during extraordinary times such as these. although a comparison with the 1977 moncloa pacts is perhaps not possible. at that time, spain was not a member of the eu and the euro did not exist. the main goal was to reduce inflation and change the income policy. today, there is a deep recession that will