Europe’s COVID-19 Measures As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drive down consumption, production, trade and investment across the bloc, disputes between northern and southern member states are impeding the European Union’s ability to come up with a coordinated response to its pandemic-induced economic crisis. So far, the strongest attempts to mitigate the financial fallout have come from national governments and the European Central Bank (ECB). The European Central Bank: The ECB has announced a 750 billion euro ($827 billion) emergency program to purchase bonds in the eurozone and has also abandoned its self-imposed limit on the percentage of debt it can buy from single countries. These decisions open the door to virtually unlimited purchases of debt, which is good news for Southern Europe. But they could also lead to legal challenges from Northern Europe, as the unlimited purchases could be against the rules that ban ECB financing of national governments.