Watch CNBC's full interview with UniCredit CEO Andrea Orcel

I think with respect to BPM and the golden power, it's more a question of clarification than a question of content. So if you ask about the core requirements of a government which is continue to finance the economy, the small and medium-sized corporates, middle segment, affluent private clients, families, I think at the core we don't disagree, actually it's already in our plan. If you look at our strategy, our strategy entails an increase in penetration in the middle segment, an increase in penetration on the families, and increased commercial momentum. So there is no big debate there. There is a debate on definitions. There is a debate on what does it mean to cease activity in Russia for example. In our opinion, we have ceased. We have not given any new loans since '21. We have reduced to almost zero in October. Zero all of our cross-border no new ones. We have reduced our cross-border payments from 25 billion a quarter to about eight and it's going down. What we're maintaining is something that we expected to maintain for European companies that are working in Russia or European governments or companies that buy steel, energy, commodities and others from Russia. They need to pay for that. Now, if you keep that open you will have some deposits because as you do a payment you have a deposit. So is that definition for you ceasing Russia or not ceasing Russia? Depending on the definition it can be a very different outcome, and given that if you breach a rule of the golden power you're liable for 20 billion in fine, this is a risk we cannot take. So if the government clarify or if we clarify with the government those and they are as we think they are, I think there is a good probability we'll continue. If we do not reach that then we will pull back and move on.

So obviously in order to solve things you need to meet. Yes. And that in Europe with government seems to be difficult given that they have a lot of other priorities. This is why we asked for a suspension, because in order for us to have that dialogue and then have enough time to inform investors and shareholders of BPM of our plan of what we want to do etc. Usually you're given more than two months or three months, but as we're losing time waiting for a resolution on this, we haven't been doing that. So we've asked for a suspension to be able to have that time. Let's see what happens. It's not fully in our hands.

Yes. Well, what I would say is what I said in the room before is that in banking consolidation or M&A, I don't know about other industries, we'll see what happens. There is now a new factor that all of us need to take into consideration and that new factor is a, let's call it, government or political intervention. And I'm not saying that as a criticism. Governments are a lot more intrusive in the way they look at things. That alters the rules of the game very materially, and it also alters what we think are the rules of the game for management teams. So as a management team, I've always believed my job is to support the economy of my country, support the clients, and create value for my shareholders. But the moment you have a political angle in that, you can have a management team that just because they do not like the situation they lobby to government and that becomes a barrier you cannot pass. I personally don't think that's the way for management teams. That does not mean the government should not look at it, but using lobby to try and derail things that would be in the best interest of your company is something that I personally have a problem with. So if you go back to what you asked, if you look at all the steps, ECB, our regulators, Bank of Italy, EVAS for insurance, European Union on antitrust, all of them, they have all come back exactly where we thought they would come back. I.e. they took their time, they looked at the numbers, it was rational. There was not one outcome that was different. So had it been for that the deal would already be well along, but now you have another element.

Yeah, I think that's a very good point. At the end of the day, there is a lot of focus being Italian on Italy or on Germany, but effectively wherever there is an element of M&A that exists. It exists in Spain, in Italy, in Germany, you can look a little bit a while back Hungary, you may depending on what the outcome see something in Poland in a completely different way. You see it in Greece, you see it in Romania, it's everywhere. In my view, there has been an acceleration of that during COVID. I mean, government took another step in the direction of intervening and supporting etc., and that led to taking a greater view and a greater level of intervention on a number of elements. But now we are at a point where that view and that intervention trumps everything else because everything else can be perfect but if that view has a different view it doesn't go forward. And I think it's probably excessive. In Germany it's so far only verbal intervention because Commerzbank is not officially something which needs to be shielded in terms of national interest.