Mr. Gabriel Makhlouf:

I will ask Mr. Madouros to comment, but to make a general proposition, it is for the Department to take a view of what the State should be doing and to make its recommendations to the European Commission. Our role is to understand the risks as we see them and to contribute to national economic development, it other words, to make sure our views are understood and known by as many people as possible. I have spoken about the importance of building what I call "economic resilience", which spans not just the addressing of climate risk, on which I completely agree with the Senator, but also thinking about the risks to the real economy from demographic change, what that means and whether we are planning adequately for it. The official debt sustainability assessments are ultimately made by the European Commission. I know the IMF does its own assessments as well. We have views, but we do not lead on this.