Budget cut puts EIOPA delivery at risk

A budget cut of around €1.7 million is set to affect the delivery of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s (EIOPA) main tasks, after a review of revenue and expenditure.

This includes Solvency II, the authority’s top project, which will see its training programme for supervisors reduced by 20 percent and the cancellation of the production of the IT supervisory toolkit related to XBRL reporting.

The budget, which was endorsed by the board of supervisors of EIOPA, will see its amount reduced by 7.6 percent compared with last year. It amounts for a decrease of €2.4 million, if compared to the original proposal that EIOPA members approved.

In response to the cuts, EIOPA has undertaken a severe strategy driven reprioritisation exercise, including not only extensive reallocation of human resources and rationalisation of funds, but also postponement and cancellation of ongoing projects. However, Solvency II will remain its highest priority.

Carlos Montalvo, executive director of EIOPA, said: “The current budget is putting at risk the effective delivery of the main tasks assigned to EIOPA by the European law. We see our mission in ensuring a strong and consistent insurance supervision in Europe for the sake of financial stability and consumer protection. Realisation of this mission becomes particularly challenging without the adequate level of staff and budget.”