In 2008, on the eve of the crisis, three-quarters of Portuguese debt, one-half of Spanish and Greek debt, and more than two-fifths of Italian debt was held by foreigners, with foreign banks holding a significant proportion, especially in the case of Greece, Portugal, and Italy. One consequence of the ECB’s large-scale long-term refinancing operation (LTRO) has been that Italian banks are once again buying Italian government bonds, and Spanish banks are buying Spanish bonds.