Mr. Carlos Martínez Mongay:

In particular, with regard to possible actions by the ECB on interest rate policy, as the Deputy knows, the Commission usually does not comment on decisions taken by the ECB. I can refer to what Mr. Draghi said a few days ago. The ECB follows economic developments very closely and is aware of developments, not only in the real economy, but also concerning inflation. In my view, it will be taking all of this information into account which it comes to the normalisation of monetary policy.

I suppose, therefore, that the ECB will adjust its interest rate policy in accordance with the economic environment. We have to take into account that sometimes the impact of monetary policy on the specific conditions concerning mortgages in a country is not passed on immediately or fully. It depends on the policies of the banks. The business models of the banks depend on a series of macroeconomic and financial stability policies implemented by the supervisor. This would be good news in a case where an economy recovered very quickly and would allow the normalisation of interest rates by the ECB. In my view, according to what Mr. Draghi explained some days ago, it will go hand in hand simultaneously with the macroeconomic environment.

I know information on the number of Irish nationals living outside Ireland and EU nationals living in Ireland exists but I do not have it with me. We will be very pleased to send this information to the committee. I have seen the information for a number of countries and it exists in the same way on the number of EU nationals living in Ireland.

With regard to the implementation of the CCCTB, the Commission's idea on this proposal has been to avoid a race to the bottom in which companies in the EU can use different criteria to define the corporate tax base to elude or avoid taxation. I do not think the introduction of the CCCTB would be more harmful than other shocks. It depends on how the entire system would adapt. The proposal the Commission has in mind on homogenising and harmonising the corporate tax base is precisely to avoid a race to the bottom whereby we would have the opposite effect to what we want, namely, that, in principle, it would stabilise the levels of tax revenues that are necessary to finance expenditure.

If I understood correctly the question on the rainy day fund, the idea and the goal of the authorities is to use extra revenues in good times so as to be able to have more expenditure or less taxation in bad times.