and tackling the shared challenges we face. 1 see mion, giordano and ponattu, dominic ( 2019 ), “ estimating economic benefits of the single market for european countries and regions ”, bertelsmannstiftung policy paper. 2 philippon, thomas ( 2019 ), the great reversal : how america gave up on free markets, belknap press. 3 faccio, mara and zingales, luigi ( 2017 ), “ political determinants of competition in the mobile telecommunication industry ”, nber working papers 23041, national bureau of economic research. 4 see european parliament factsheet ( 2019 ), “ the european union and its trade partners ”, www. europarl. europa. eu / factsheets / en / sheet / 160 / the - european - union - and - its - trade - partners 5 standard eurobarometer survey 92, autumn 2019. 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches 6 bergbauer, stephanie, hernborg, nils, jamet, jean - francois and persson, eric ( 2020 ), “ the reputation of the euro and the european central bank : interlinked or disconnected? ”, journal of european public policy, january. 3 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches

difficulties. we have to be cautious and, above all, persist in our policies as promised, given that these encouraging projections are predicated on the full implementation of our purchase programmes until next year. sometimes criticism is directed at our policies, either because by reducing interest rates now we hurt savers or because low rates are contributing to excesses in assets valuations. implicitly, these views are attributing the responsibility of the low interest rate environment to central bank policies. but the case is exactly the opposite : central banks are only reacting and trying to correct a situation that they did not create. medium and long term market interest rates are mostly influenced by investors and market players as the recent so - called “ bund tantrum ” illustrates. more importantly though, it should be pointed out that for a few decades now we see a sort of secular trend for lower real interest rates. this trend is related to secular stagnation in advanced economies, resulting from a continuous deceleration of total productivity growth and an increase in planned savings over less buoyant investment prospects. monetary policy short - term rates are low because of those developments, not the other way around. at the same time, our monetary policy has to be accommodative precisely in order to normalise inflation and growth rates therefore getting to higher interest rates. annualised six month growth rate of mfi loans to the private sector adjusted for sales and securitisations. bis central bankers ’ speeches furthermore, in the present short - term conditions, with fiscal policy blocked, it is monetary policy that can create the hope that this normalisation will protect savers in the future and improve net margins for banks. financial stability risks and macroprudential policy clearly, no policy intervention is without side effects. a prolonged period of low interest rates contributes to search for yield and to possible rich asset valuations which may generate financial stability concerns. in our financial stability review published two days ago, this is acknowledged and described as the first risk to stability : the possibility of an abrupt reversal of risk premia and asset valuations that could induce capital losses and disturb the recovery. it should be however noted that, to date, no generalised overvaluations in asset markets have been identified. while euro area stock prices are increasing rapidly, the schiller measure of cyclically adjusted average price - earnings - ratio in the euro area stock exchanges is 14, which is close but still below its historical average, whereas it stands at around