Having blogged late last week on the reasons for the EU Parliament being a notable no-show at the ABI Solvency II conference last week, I was pretty shocked today to see that the delay on voting on Omnibus II (mooted by Sr. Montalvo only last week by the same publication to be a delay until the end of Jan 2012), has now apparently been moved back to April 2012.
This would clearly be a dreadful result for both the industry (on the uncertainty front) and EIOPA (on producing technical standards), and bearing in mind the disdain and petulance currently being displayed by the Parliament and head of the Commission towards the UK, might we expect to see some last minute shenanighans from the Parliament to the detriment of the UK industry regarding, say, transitional measures or the illiquidity premium?
Look forward to hearing what the other institutions themselves have to say about it - delaying the parliamentary vote to January is one thing, April is surely stretching their patience, regardless of the competing priorities at present.
Post script - proof of the pudding is in the eating
An online repository for Solvency II, ERM and Corporate Governance material and comment from the Principal of Governance Matters, an independent Risk Consultancy firm based on the Isle of Man.
No one objects to the Parliament having some say in Solvency II. However, what is worrying is the extent to which it is seeking influence over the detail as well as the general principles. It does this by seeking to hard code detailed regulatory provisions into the Omnibus II directive and hence into the Solvency II level 1 text, and by calling for the use of regulatory technical standards over which it will have a higher degree of influence than delegated acts or implementing technical standards.
ReplyDeleteI agree with the previous commenter - this is just getting ridiculous. I foresee further delays and potentially a collapse of the whole S2 project, against a backdrop of continued Euro economic turmoil and EU political turmoil.
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