Countries that apply for an ECB bond-buying programme will not necessarily be asked to implement more austerity as certain governments have already made considerable steps in this direction, ECB executive board member Benoit Coeure said on Saturday.
"An intervention by the ECB can only work if countries are on the road back to growth," Coeure told France Inter radio.
"That does not necessarily mean more austerity and these countries, as we know, have already taken a lot of steps in the right direction and so there will not necessarily be any further demands on them."