If I remember correctly, the bonds may only be sold by the government to a fixed list of banks and those banks can then sell them to the ECB or the general publ

If I remember correctly, the bonds may only be sold by the government to a fixed list of banks and those banks can then sell them to the ECB or the general public. The level of indirection serves no practical purpose but is ideologically justified with the argument that banks are more likely to consider the market when deciding whether to buy the bonds or not even though they can just sell to the ECB without any losses.