THE balance of eurozone growth risks is clearly tilted to the downside, European Central Bank (ECB) policymaker Pablo Hernandez de Cos said Saturday, citing a disorderly Brexit as a key risk and acknowledging the ECB’s shortcomings in meeting its inflation goals.

De Cos said in a speech in La Granda in northern Spain that Britain’s withdrawal from the European Union “remains a focus of first-order uncertainty for the global economy and, especially, for the rest of the EU.”

“The most recent events, including the decision to suspend the activity of the British Parliament by the new prime minister until mid-October, have increased the likelihood that markets are giving to a hard Brexit,” De Cos said.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said Wednesday he will suspend parliament from mid-September to mid-October ahead of an Oct. 31 Brexit deadline, raising the stakes in the country’s deepest political crisis in decades.

De Cos also mentioned the political situation in Italy, and vulnerabilities in emerging economies such as Turkey and Argentina as risk factors.

He added that protectionist measures were among the greatest threats to global activity, in a reference to the trade war between China and the United States.

The eurozone barely grew in the second quarter and Germany, the bloc’s power house, may already be in recession as a global trade war and Brexit uncertainty reduce export demand and sap confidence in the manufacturing sector.

De Cos said the slide in recent months in the global services sector purchasing managers’ index, which had previously been more robust, indicated a growing risk of a slowdown in global activity, De Cos said.

De Cos said there was a possibility that low or even negative interest rates may have an adverse effect on financial stability and banks. (SD-Agencies)