It is always a pleasure to return to GIBS as I was personally associated with this school after my term of office as a Deputy Governor expired in 2004, and have a great deal of respect for the forums you create for open dialogue.
This makes it likely that higher oil prices will persist for some time yet and there is an ongoing risk that oil prices could rise further and potentially combine with other negative factors to cause more protracted problems for the global and euro area economies. Oil prices are not the only external factor complicating the outlook.