LONDON (Reuters Breakingviews) - Christine Lagarde is leaving the fireworks to politicians. The European Central Bank chief said on Thursday she will deploy emergency stimulus measures for longer to help the euro zone economy recover from the pandemic but produced no innovations. It’s governments’ turn to do more of the work. Lagarde’s main concern is to maintain favourable financing conditions for countries, companies, and households. Her latest announcements will help. A pandemic asset purchase programme was extended to at least the end of March 2022. To accommodate that, the total amount of bonds that the ECB will buy was increased by 500 billion euros, to 1.85 trillion euros. Also, banks that lend to businesses will be able to borrow money from the ECB at ultra-generous terms until June 2022, a year longer than previously planned. The extensions were necessary. The ECB on Thursday downgraded its 2021 growth prediction to 3.9% from 5% and doesn’t see inflation rising to anywhere near its just-below-2% target over its forecast horizon, which goes out to 2023. They may not, however, be enough. Banks on Thursday borrowed 50.4 billion euros from the ECB in a three-year auction at the same rebate rate that is being offered for an extra year. This was a far cry from the record 1.3 trillion euros borrowed in June and suggests either that lenders don’t want to extend new credit or that there isn’t demand for it. Meanwhile, government borrowing costs are already low across the euro zone even though politicians are spending huge amounts to shield businesses and workers from the worst of the downturn. In the race to revive economies, the baton is therefore being passed to governments. European Union leaders appear close to clinching a deal on a stalled budget package that includes joint EU borrowing of 750 billion euros. That’s helpful. However, the risk is that governments don’t target spending wisely, or withdraw fiscal support too soon. And it would be better if stimulus could be accompanied by the sort of productivity-enhancing reforms that Lagarde wants. This may be too much to ask for given governments’ main priority is to kickstart growth rather than tackle deep-rooted structural problems. But anything that takes the burden off the ECB will be welcome.