Mr. Mario Draghi:

First of all let me say that there is a separation. The president of the ECB does not comment on supervisory issues. The Senator said that I am its head. Yes, technically and legally that is true but in fact we never comment, because we do not want to pollute or confuse the two areas of monetary policy and supervision. Second, many of the issues Senator Gavan mentioned have to do with misconduct. To this extent, they really pertain to the area of consumer protection. As such, they do not really pertain to what the ECB or the supervisory area of the ECB can do. It is not in our remit.

Third, this question, and many others, concerns the social consequences of a banking system which, as I said before, is in a monopoly or quasi-monopoly situation or performed badly during the financial crisis. To the extent that is possible, of course the rules should be devised so that the banking system is stable and provides credit to the real economy and not just to the financial sector. However, the first and foremost instrument that governments have to deal with all of these social problems is social policy. The two areas should be kept separate, at least to the extent that is possible. One intervenes with the best instrument to achieve the objective in the most effective way. If there are socially distressed borrowers, there should be a social policy intervention. This has been done in other countries, by the way.