In a press release issued on Wednesday, Greenpeace Luxembourg wrote that during the lockdown period, from mid-March to mid-May, the ECB purchased €30b in corporate bonds as part of its Pandemic Emergency Purchase Programme. Greenpeace claims €7.6b was injected into fossil fuels, through purchasing bonds from seven major polluters. “The ECB has just contributed to an estimated 11.2 million tonnes of carbon emissions into the atmosphere, more than Luxembourg’s total annual emissions,” Greenpeace wrote.

An ECB spokesperson told Delano on Wednesday it preferred not to comment on the claims, saying only that the bank does not publish CSPP purchase amounts, only lists of bonds held.

The statement comes a day before the ECB governing council is due to meet to review its monetary strategy. According to the Financial Times, president Christine Lagarde is expected to announce a “fresh boost to its stimulus efforts to tackle the economic and financial fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.”

The FT reports that €234b from the €750b bond-buying scheme launched in March has already been spent. The entire allocation is expected to run out by October.

In early May, the stimulus measure came under fire from the German Constitutional Court which said the bond-buying scheme started in 2015 partially contravened law because neither the German government nor parliament signs off on the spending. The European Court of Justice  responded saying it alone had jurisdiction over the ECB.