Mr. Carlos Martínez Mongay:

The answer on Brexit must be long because we must take into account that today we do not know much about it. All we know is there was a referendum in which the people of the UK voted to leave the EU. We also know that after the referendum there was a serious depreciation of the pound. There was also quite a strong initial temporary impact on the stock markets but they recovered.

The only stocks on which this had a more permanent impact were those in the banking sector, and that was not only in this country but also in the UK. It impacted on almost every type of bank almost everywhere in Italy because it was a factor from the beginning of the year. Apart from that, the stock markets have recovered completely and the impact on risk premium, in particular for this country, was almost non-existent. What has remained after the referendum is a weaker pound.

Brexit is another process. We do not know the structure of the relationships that will exist between the UK and the EU after Britain exits the negotiations because the negotiations have not started. There are no negotiating positions until Article 50 is activated, which lies only in the hands of the UK Government or authorities. I do not know if that is something that has to be decided internally in the context of the UK authorities. It is up to the UK to activate Article 50, and until it is activated, the UK is an EU member state and nothing changes except that we know now that the pound is weaker. We know that perhaps there will be some impact in terms of confidence in the currency, which will affect mainly investment in the UK, but we have incorporated that in forecasts concerning the UK. There are some issues linked mainly to the weaker pound that could favour exports from the UK to the rest of the euro area and make exports from the euro area to the UK more expensive. Such effects are not yet visible but we have incorporated them in the autumn forecast. I would like to make clear that we have not incorporated any impact of Brexit simply because we do not know when the Article 50 will be activated. We do not know how long the negotiations will last. We know they will have to conclude within two years at most following the activation of Article 50. We do not know what the structure of the relationships between the UK and the rest of the EU will be after Brexit. Therefore, we do not know whether we will move to having a Norwegian model or to the World Trade Organization, WTO, rules.