need to safeguard the singleness of monetary policy throughout the euro area, the eligibility of greek government bonds both for purchases under the pepp and for acceptance as collateral by greek banks in the eurosystem liquidity providing operations should be maintained, although the credit rating criteria are not met, as decided in april along with a package of temporary collateral easing measures. the second role of the pepp refers to providing additional monetary stimulus, further to that already achieved through the asset purchase programme ( app ) implemented since 2015 in response to the then financial crisis. by purchasing bonds directly from banks, as well as corporations, we provide them with additional funding. this reduces their funding costs and facilitates banks ’ capacity to increase credit supply, thus supporting consumption and investment. hence, we are contributing to economic recovery and to inflation converging to rates consistent with price stability. in particular, the total app holdings of the eurosystem currently amount to almost €3 trillion, including the additional envelope decided last march ( of €120 billion until the end of 2020 ). this amount is further augmented by the amount of assets purchased under the pepp, which reached over €700 billion during 2020. net asset purchases under the emergency programme will continue flexibly for at least until the end of march 2022 and in any case until it is determined that the pandemic crisis is over, up to a total amount of €1. 85 trillion, as we decided at the governing council ’ s meeting on 10 december 2020, taking into account the continued pandemic - related negative effects on inflation and growth. furthermore, given the need for support over a protracted period, we have decided that the maturing principal payments from securities purchased under the pepp will be reinvested until at least the end of 2023. with a view to ensuring that banks have sufficient liquidity and access to funding so that they can lend to households and firms at favourable rates, we deemed necessary to conduct additional pandemic emergency longer - term refinancing operations ( peltros ) and to effectively ease the terms for the third series of targeted longer - term refinancing operations ( tltro - iii ). the interest rate on these longer - term operations ( together providing liquidity of about €1. 75 trillion at the current juncture ) was set at negative levels, which in the case of tltro - iii may even reach – 1 % for banks that maintain a steady growth rate of new loans

october a virtual event2, bringing together a range of civil society organisations, hosted by president christine lagarde and chief economist philip lane. the event was broadcast live on the internet, while a summary report was published after the listening phase. furthermore, the ecb offered all citizens the opportunity to express their views via the ‘ ecb listens portal ’ to better understand their perspectives on the economy and what they expect from their central bank. on our part, we have scheduled our own listening event entitled ‘ the bank of greece listens ’ in early 2021, with the participation of social partners and with the aim of promoting dialogue on the monetary policy strategy. in closing, i would like to congratulate all those who have made this conference possible. 1 see interview by president christine lagarde on 19 october 2020. 2 ecb listens event ( europa. eu ) 4 / 4 bis central bankers'speeches