Statement to the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee of the European Parliament - September 2026

Madam Chair, 

Honourable Members of the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, 

Thank you for the invitation to address you this afternoon. This is my first appearance before this Committee since the start of my second mandate, and I welcome the opportunity to continue our dialogue. 

Let me begin with the role that insurance and pensions play in the Savings and Investments Union and, more broadly, in strengthening the resilience of our society.

Together, Europe’s insurers and pension funds hold around €13.7 trillion in assets. More than 92% of Europeans hold at least one insurance policy, while occupational pension institutions serve over 76 million people. Behind these figures are citizens who expect protection and financial security throughout their lives.

This matters even more as Europe’s population ages. Public pensions remain the cornerstone of retirement, but demographic change and pressure on public finances make supplementary pensions increasingly important. They can improve retirement outcomes and support long-term investment. 

EIOPA therefore welcomes the SIU focus on supplementary pensions. The Commission’s proposals on IORP II and PEPP build on our advice. I am also encouraged that Parliament’s draft reports move in a similar direction in many respects. 

But financial security is not only about retirement. 

This summer again showed the scale of climate risk. Yet only around a quarter of natural catastrophe losses are insured. The rest falls on households, businesses and public budgets. We have explored ways to share those costs better, looked into innovative data sources such as Copernicus Earth observation data to improve risk assessment, and proposed a tool to strengthen risk awareness and prevention among citizens. But this is not a challenge that supervisors can address on their own. Closing the protection gap requires the whole ecosystem — consumers, builders, (re)insurers, financial markets, city councils, national governments, and finally the European layer — to act in concert: to strengthen mitigation and adaptation, reduce moral hazard, and ultimately increase protection. 

At the same time, EIOPA also continued to monitor other risks, including cyber and health. 

Across all these areas, one objective underpins our work: citizens must be able to rely on the promises made to them. This means products that deliver value, resilient companies and protection when difficulties occur. 

We revised our value-for-money benchmarks, continued our mystery shopping work and prepared for the Retail Investment Strategy, so that citizens can invest with confidence in products that are transparent on what they promise to deliver. 

We also continued to work to strengthen the prudential framework. We delivered several legal instruments required under Solvency II and the IRRD. 

But no prudential framework can eliminate failure altogether. And after all failure, is part of a healthy economy. What matters is that, when failure occurs, it is managed in an orderly way and policyholders are adequately protected. 

That is why we recently advised the Commission on insurance guarantee schemes, aimed at a common minimum level of protection while respecting national specificities. 

Simplification has also remained a priority. Among other things, we shortened guidelines, streamlined reporting obligations, strengthened proportionality and reduced the frequency of our stress tests. 

But simplification cannot stop there. Much of what we have done so far has been about addressing the low-hanging fruit — important steps, but only a first stage. We are deepening our dialogue with supervisors and industry to further identify unnecessary complexity, and practical solutions that do not necessarily require a legislative change and without weakening financial stability or policyholder protection.

Finally, EIOPA fully supports the EU's competitiveness agenda. We contribute to it through regulation and supervision that are predictable, proportionate and fit for purpose, backed by robust impact assessments, with the aim of reducing barriers to the further integration of the Single Market. And yes, we need to do this better than we have before and we will. This is part of our core strategy. In the international arena, we continue to bring a strong European voice to the discussions, working with international authorities to promote consistent global standards and a level playing field for European insurers. 

Let me conclude with a brief perspective on supervision. Earlier this year, we set out our Strategy Towards 2030. At its core is ensuring financial stability, societal resilience, in a simple and smart way, while operating in supervisory unity, meaning EIOPA and national supervisors working even more closely together, sharing information earlier, and addressing common challenges more swiftly and effectively. But operating in unity, alone, is not always enough. Cross-border business continues to expose differences in supervisory practices, powers and capacity. If supervision is to match an increasingly integrated market, the framework must evolve. We need to consider where greater harmonisation is sufficient, where responsibilities may need to change and where a more centralised approach may be needed. 

These questions belong to the wider debate on the Single Market and the SIU. EIOPA stands ready to contribute its experience and expertise to this debate, in support of a stronger and more resilient Europe. 

Dear Chair, dear Members, 

We greatly value your scrutiny and your engagement with our work. 

I look forward to continuing this dialogue throughout my second term. 

Thank you for your attention. I am now at your disposal for questions.