The European Central Bank is to buy government bonds to fight the euro zone debt crisis.
An emergency telephone conference on Sunday between the central bank governors of all 17 eurozone countries discussed whether to start buying Italian debt to contain spreading turmoil on financial markets.
In a statement afterwards, the ECB also welcomed announcements by Spain and Italy on new fiscal and structural policy measures and urged both governments to roll them out swiftly.
Both Italy and Spain insist they can service their debt.
On Friday, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi said he was bringing forward austerity measures and would balance the government budget by 2013, one year ahead of schedule.
The BBC reports the ECB bought Irish and Portuguese bonds last week, but not Spanish and Italian debt.
G7 finance ministers and central bank governors from Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan and the United States, have also held a conference call to discuss how to calm the markets.
Afterwards, a statement said that they intend to stay in close contact and were ''ready to take'' joint action if needed in foreign exchange markets.
