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Opening the Conference Thomas Steffen, chair of CEIOPS summarised the achievements and outlined the challenges ahead. Carlos Costa Pina underlined the success of the Lamfalussy process in achieving a greater level of cooperation between supervisors and increased transparency in the regulatory debate.
Among the areas for improvement, Johnny Åkerholm mentioned a possible rationalisation of the consultation process, to prevent excessive consultation and to process stakeholders’ input more efficiently. He warned against too detailed Level 1 principles and implementing measures.
A first panel discussed the Solvency II project and the results of the latest QIS3 exercise. Panellists addressed some critical issues that could be improved in the next exercise such as the need for a downward revision of the calibration of the non-life underwriting risk, the need for guidance in the calculation of the best estimate and the use of proxies and the importance of the use of risk mitigating instruments in the calculation of the solvency capital requirement.
A second panel discussed the future challenges and priorities of the Solvency II project. The panel agreed on the need for convergence from an industry perspective as well as a consumer perspective. It was however stressed that convergence should take into account social and cultural differences with regard to consumer needs.
A third panel looked at the supervisory framework for EU occupational pensions, the basis of which is the IORP Directive adopted in 2005. A number of ambitious initiatives for both the European Commission and CEIOPS were announced for 2008 with delivery in 2009. These include the Commission’s review of the Directive focusing on the effectiveness of cross-border provisions, as well as a preparatory work, to be carried out by the newly created OPC Solvency subcommittee chaired by Aerdt Houben of DNB, for the future development of an appropriate, risk based solvency system for IORPs.
Commissioner McCreevy finally commented on the IORP Directive, its purpose and two main objectives. He stated that the Commission had decided to initiate a review of the Directive in 2008, and in that context, to include examining the challenges brought by Solvency II.