In addition, this morning the Federal Reserve announced a new facility that will help provide liquidity to term funding markets by purchasing three-month commercial paper and asset-backed commercial paper directly from eligible issuers. The expansion of Federal Reserve lending is helping financial firms cope with reduced access to their usual sources of funding.
Let me first briefly summarise the main points of the Lisbon agenda before turning to the question of how the benchmarking and monitoring process could be strengthened. In particular, the Lisbon agenda stresses the following reforms necessary for an increased flexibility on product, labour and capital markets: •  A further integration of capital markets should be pursued.