I see several reasons why this is the right thing to do. I do not believe that the Swedish asset purchases will significantly affect how expansionary monetary policy is when the financial markets are functioning well. In that case, selling bonds does not entail any significant tightening of monetary policy. I do not mean that sales would go unnoticed. On the contrary, I believe that sales would lead to price movements and some disturbance in the market. But that is exactly what we should avoid. The Riksbank should as far as possible avoid interfering in market pricing. The arguments against active sales are strengthened by the fact that the maturities of many of our assets are relatively short. In principle, it would be good if we  45 I have highlighted the risk to the Riksbank's finances (Flodén 2016 and 2018, as well as my contributions at the  monetary policy meetings in December 2017, April 2019 and November 2020) and risks to the functioning of the government bond market (April 2019). I have also pointed out that it is desirable that pricing of risk should normally be left to the market (November 2020 and November 2021). 24 [30]  could rapidly reduce our holdings of private securities, that is, mortgage and corporate bonds. However, these assets have the shortest maturity and almost the entire holding will mature within five years (see Figure 14).46 The strongest argument for active sales concerns government bonds.
Likewise important from the standpoint of the industry’s resilience has been the deleveraging undergone by the Spanish non-financial private sector during this period. From 2010 to 2019 there was a decline of almost 30 pp of GDP in the household debt ratio; and in the case of the non-financial corporations sector, its net debt fell by more than 45 pp of GDP from 2010. 1  In any event, the most appropriate means of illustrating the banking sector’s resilience is through the stress tests we regularly perform as supervisors. In July, the ECB conducted a vulnerability analysis of the banks under its supervision. The aim was to test, prospectively, banks’ resilience to the shock caused by the pandemic. The results of this exercise for Spanish banks are very similar to those obtained at the Banco de España in the Forward Looking Exercise on Spanish Banks (FLESB) stress test exercise, whose final results were published in our autumn Financial Stability Report. In the baseline scenario considered by the Banco de España’s vulnerability exercise, which includes cumulative declines in euro area GDP in 2020, 2021 and 2022 of around 1.6%, the reduction in the solvency of Spanish banks as a whole was estimated at 2 pp for significant institutions with an international presence, at 1 pp for other significant institutions and at 0.8 pp for institutions under the direct supervision of the Banco de España, leaving them at 9.9%, 12% and 18.7% on average, respectively, above the prudential requirements established.