ECB U-turn shows it fears coronavirus could destroy eurozone project

Bank now realises Europe will sustain grievous economic damage from Covid-19

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Weak. Clumsy. Behind the curve. The European Central Bank took stick for its initial response to the Covid-19 pandemic - and rightly so.

Those accusations can no longer be levied after the ECB used an emergency meeting to launch a gigantic new package of quantitative easing (QE) - the electronic money creation device that has become a key tool for central banks since the financial crisis of 2008.

28 October 1929The original Black Monday. The Dow plunged 13%, then a record, as the Great Wall Street Crash ended the bull market of the 1920s.