The ECB’s latest attempt to hold the euro zone together

ten years to the day since Mario Draghi, then the president of the European Central Bank, ended the most acute phase of the euro-zone crisis with the assurance that he would do “whatever it takes” to keep the currency bloc together. Now, with risks of a fresh debt crisis looming, Christine Lagarde, his successor as president, unveiled the bank’s latest attempt to make good on that promise. The Transmission Protection Instrument (), announced on July 21st, is a bond-buying scheme intended to prevent the spread in borrowing costs between euro-zone governments from widening so far that troubled countries would be at risk of a forced exit from the currency.The need for such a tool is apparent. Shortly before the central bank’s meeting , a role he had unexpectedly taken up last year at the head of an unwieldy coalition. The turmoil in Rome placed further pressure on Italian bonds, which were already facing higher interest rates amid a potential economic slowdown. Rising bond yields risk trapping Italy in a self-reinforcing cycle of higher borrowing costs, worries over the sustainability of its debt and, ultimately, fears that the third-largest economy in the euro zone could not survive inside it.