Yes, and many Western European bonds as well. This is part of the justification for negative interest by the ECB. The reason is that government bonds are essent

Yes, and many Western European bonds as well. This is part of the justification for negative interest by the ECB. The reason is that government bonds are essentially risk free. Since the ECB is totally risk free, if they were to offer a better interest than government bonds, that would be a no-brainer for banks. This has the effect of pulling the cash in banks into the ECB and thus out of investments. Cash that is not invested, but stored in the ECB is not contributing to the economy. Moreover, it is essentially unfair competition by the ECB. Finally, governments might be miffed that investors don't buy government bonds. There is another justification that is essentially focusing entirely on the "Cash that is not invested, but stored in the ECB is not contributing to the economy." line of reasoning. Here, the idea is simply to reduce the ECB interest so banks will want to invest more, thus growing the economy. This differs from the first argument because it doesn't care about the 'risk free interest rate' of the current market. It just wants more money in the economy.