Desidero ringraziare il Presidente Sella e l’Associazione Bancaria Italiana per aver accolto con entusiasmo il mio suggerimento di consentire un momento di incontro tra il Commissario europeo per il Mercato Interno, Charlie McCreevy, ed alcuni tra i più significativi rappresentanti del mondo bancario italiano, che ringrazio per aver aderito a questa iniziativa. Saluto, inoltre, il Prof. Vittorio Grilli, Direttore Generale Dipartimento del Tesoro, il Dott. Pierluigi Ciocca, Vice Direttore Generale della Banca d'Italia e il Dott. Carlo Biancheri, Responsabile dell'Ufficio relazioni internazionali della Consob che rappresentano oggi le Istituzioni Italiane con funzioni di controllo e indirizzo nel settore bancario. And of course it is my pleasure to welcome Commissioner McCreevy and to thank him for having accepted my invitation to visit Rome. The idea that brought us together tonight is to give to Commissioner McCreevy the opportunity to have a first hand information on the Italian Banking System as it stands now, after a decade of a wide process of concentration and privatisation. Europe’s cross-border consolidation of the banking sector is still in its infancy and to understand how this sector truly functions, one is forced to distinguish along national lines. Each member state has its own peculiar financial history that ultimately shaped its major credit institutions. Italy is obviously no exception. In this regard, there are two junctures in our past that I want to recall here. The first falls in the mid-thirties of the last century, when essentially our banking system – together with a large chunk of our industrial base – went bust. This led to the creation of the public holding Istituto di Ricostruzione Industriale (IRI), which assumed the control of the 3 largest Italian banks and of many industrial concerns owned by the same 3 banks. In 1936, a new system of governance for the Bank of Italy was approved and a banking law approved which barred commercial banks from industrial lending. Similar measures were taken elsewhere, including in the United States, since depression had struck with pandemic virulence. But in Italy this system of public ownership survived much longer than needed, due to the structural weaknesses of its private sector, the underdevelopment of its financial market and – let’s face it – an ideological penchant for state interventionism. It took some sixty years to begin to privatise Italy’s banking sector. The mid-nineties is, in fact, the second crucial juncture in the our recent past. The negative effects of public control were manifest in the size and profitability of Italian banks. To give a measure of this, in 1933 Comit assets were two thirds of Deutsche Bank and three times UBS. In the nineties they were one sixth of Deutsche Bank and one third of UBS. Since the mid-nineties, the newly privatised Italian banking sector went through a process of rapid and substantial consolidation. A recent study by the research firm R&S, compared the three largest Italian banks – Banca Intesa, Unicredito and Sanpaolo Imi – with its counterparts in Europe, Japan and the United States. The results are quite encouraging for our banks. Although still behind in terms of assets – valued at between one third and one fourth those of their major foreign competitors – the big Italian three stand their ground in most other indicators, from return on equity, to growth of operational margins, net profits, operational costs, losses on credit and so on – as this distinguished panel can confirm to Commissioner McCreevy.. This is to show that our banks may well have some good cards to play in the game of cross-border mergers and acquisitions – as Unicredito’s takeover of Germany’s HVB shows aplenty, and in spite of all the attention that went to BNL and Antonveneta. I want assure Commissioner McCreevy that Italy has no doubts about the process of European integration, as shown by our representatives in the Constitutional Convention and by the smooth and timely ratification of the Constitutional Treaty. Italy is also open to foreign capital. One third of our manufacturing sector is foreign-owned. Italy’s biggest four banks have, on average, 16% of their capital which is foreign-owned – as opposed to 7% in Germany, 3% in France and 2,6% in Spain. The Government has no role in the tussle about Antonveneta and BNL: we simply consider it contentions among rival groups. We are good Europeans and we will continue to be so. This is the reason why I encourage Commissioner McCreevy to go forward in his review of the European banking system. I want to assure him that the Italian Government will consider with keen interest the Commission’s forthcoming proposals on this subject. Thank you.