Actually, the share and bondholders will be required to bail it in, under EU laws introduced a few years ago.
One of the benefits of running large banks ( and insurers ) is "privatize profits and socialized losses". These bankers and insurers can't lose. If they gamble and win, they get the rewards. If they gamble and lose, everyone else has to foot the bill.
Not all bank shareholders were wiped out in 2008, while they clearly should have based on the amount of public money some banks got.
If the ECB holds these bonds then technically eu monetary union citizens do have exposure.
To me this seems to have been a dangerous decision by the ECB and other central banks. With their policy, could this have created a situation whereby companies that would not otherwise survive are now over-leveraged. The result being a small disruption bringing everything down with it?
To put the question another way, do we have a massive bubble in corporate debt due to central bank polcies, resulting in companies that should have gone under being over-leveraged.
With the ECB planning to stop the buying by end 2018, will we see a correction?
[0] https://www.ecb.europa.eu/mopo/implement/omt/html/index.en.h...
[1] https://www.wsj.com/articles/central-banks-put-squeeze-on-so...
Edit:
According to JP morgan [3] the policy has created 'zombie' companies.
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-07-18/jpmorgan-...