Luigi Federico Signorini: Brexit - the possible economic and financial effects

Testimony by Mr Luigi Federico Signorini, Deputy Governor of the Bank of Italy, at the III Standing Committee on Foreign and European Community Affairs and XIV Standing Committee on EU Policies, Chamber of Deputies Rome, 26 April 2017.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
28 June 2017

Mr Chairman, Honourable Members of Parliament,

I would like to thank the Committees for inviting the Bank of Italy to comment on the United Kingdom's exit from the European Union. I will begin with a brief description of some well-known institutional aspects and then make some comments on the possible economic (for the United Kingdom, Europe and Italy) and financial repercussions. At this point in time, my observations can only be preliminary ones.

Institutional aspects: negotiations, exit and future relationships

Following the agreements reached in Lisbon in 2007, an article was added to the Treaty on the European Union - the constitutional basis of the EU - which explicitly provides for the possibility that a member state might wish to withdraw, and regulates the relative procedure. This is Article 50, now well-known after being invoked for the first time by the UK on 29 March in Prime Minister May's letter to the President of the European Council.