. this has led us to adapt our communication, which is based on the intention to keep rates low for a prolonged period. given the low level of inflation, investors are anticipating a qe package between now and the end of the year. are they mistaken? our new long - term liquidity lending ( tltro ) programme, which will be launched in september, will in particular enable banks to address their major bond refinancing needs. as a result, the banks will not only be encouraged to lend more and at more favourable conditions, but they will raise less funding on the markets. this liquidity will be returned to investors, which they can use to buy other assets. so we shouldn ’ t be expecting a genuine qe package? last month we launched a package of measures that will be activated in september and december before being renewed on a quarterly basis. barring any new circumstances, we need to take time to measure the effects. when you talk about large - scale asset purchases, which assets do you mean, exactly? to be really effective, bearing in mind the limited size of the private capital market in europe, this type of programme is likely to include mainly government bonds. bis central bankers ’ speeches the new longer - term loans to banks are conditional on them granting credit. don ’ t you think they will use them to purchase sovereign bonds as in the past? they could do it to invest their liquidity on a temporary basis before finding a permanent home for it. the banks are aware that it is not wise to be over - exposed to sovereign debt. the link between banks and governments, which is what prompted the sovereign debt crisis, is now monitored very closely. the euro has not really fallen despite the fall in the key interest rates. is this a concern for you? we have noticed that following the new measures, a persistent rising trend has been halted. we are confident that when the new measures are implemented, they will underpin an accommodative monetary policy. the euro area needs such a policy – unlike other major currency areas, which are at a completely different phase of the economic cycle. and this rebalancing is likely to be reflected, over time, in the external value of the euro. a portuguese bank has triggered turmoil on the european markets. are the euro area and its banks still a cause for concern despite all the firewalls that have been put in place? the banking union that the european central bank is actively preparing for will

of the emu in 1999 the euro area has witnessed an increase of more than 12 million in the number of people employed. the rise in the overall employment rate in the euro area over the last ten years has been mainly due to an increase in the female and older workers employment rates, partly driven by the progress made by structural reforms in some european countries. this improvement in the employment situation is also reflected in the contribution of workers to economic growth. the degree of labour utilisation reflects the extent to which the labour force in an economy actually contributes to the production process and therefore has a direct influence on output growth. for the euro area, labour utilisation grew on annual average by 0. 4 % [ percentage changes ] between 1996 and 2006 6 [ compared with 0. 1 % in the us ] when defined as the total annual hours worked divided by the total population. 7 although this is a very encouraging fact, which shows that the positive employment effect we witnessed over the last ten years has significantly helped us to counteract the growth differential to the us, one has to remain aware of the inferior starting position of euro area countries. these improvements did not cancel out structural weaknesses of labour markets. first of all, despite the important progress recorded, the overall employment rate in the euro area remains low by international standards [ 64. 5 % in the euro area compared with 72 % in the us in 2006 ] and the unemployment rate is still clearly too high [ 7. 9 % compared with 4. 6 % in the us on annual average in 2006 and 7. 1 % to be compared to 4. 5 % in april this year ]. also to be noted in 2006, the number of annual hours worked in the euro area was 1604 compared to 1804 8 in the us. this clearly suggests that there is still considerable room for improvement as regards increasing the level of labour resource utilisation in europe. second, while the prime - age male employment rate in the euro area is comparable to that observed in the united states, when we look at the youth, female and older worker employment rates, the disparities remain important. in 2006 the female employment rate was 56. 5 % in the euro area and 66 % in the us, the older workers employment rate was 41. 7 % in the euro area and 61. 8 % in the us, the youth employment rate was 37. 1 % in the euro area and 54. 2 % in the us. these figures appear to be consistent with an