EIOPA strives for sound and robust regulation of the European insurance and pension sectors and for consistent high-quality supervision. This gives consumers better protection and safeguards financial stability.
EIOPA acts as an independent advisory authority, preparing detailed regulations and technical advice for the European Commission. It is also accountable to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. EIOPA maintains strong relations with other European institutions such as the European Central Bank and the European Systemic Risk Board.
European Parliament
EIOPA, as a regulatory body, is accountable to the European Parliament.
As EIOPA is partly (40%) funded by the European Commission, it reports to the Committee for Budget (BUDG) and the Committee on Budgetary Control(CONT).
Other European Parliament committees that EIOPA interacts with include Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO), and the Employment and Social Affairs(EMPL).
Council of the European Union
The Council of the European Union is the institution representing the Member States’ governments. It negotiates and adopts legislation mostly together with the European Parliament.
EIOPA participates in the Financial Services Committee (FSC) and the Economic and Financial Committee (EFC), as an observer and contributes to debates on the assessment of risk in the European financial system and on the state of European financial market integration.
The European System of Financial Supervision
European Systemic Risk Board
The founding regulations of the ESAs and European Systemic Risk Board (ESRB) requires all of the parties to the ESFS to co-operate "with trust and full mutual respect”.
Cooperation between the ESRB and the ESAs takes place on a:
- Macro-prudential level (interactions among financial institutions): as oversight is not meaningful unless it affects supervision and regulation at the micro-prudential level.
- Micro-prudential level (within individual financial institutions): as supervision and regulation cannot effectively safeguard financial stability without taking account of macro-prudential developments.
One of the ESRB’s main objectives is to collect information to identify systemic risks. When fulfilling their tasks of market monitoring, the ESAs must provide the ESRB with all the information necessary for it to fulfil its tasks. The ESRB is also closely involved in the design of the scenarios for the EIOPA stress tests.
The ESRB Secretariat is supported by the European Central Bank (ECB), located in Frankfurt am Main.
EU Agencies Network
The EU Agencies Network (EUAN) is made up of 49 decentralised EU Agencies and Joint Undertakings (JUs). They carry out legal, technical or scientific tasks and support the preparation and implementation of EU policies in a large range of specialised areas.
The Network provides a platform for exchange and cooperation for its members on areas of common interest, enabling better sharing of expertise at European level.
Every year, an agency chairs the network and sets the priorities for the coming year. EIOPA took over the chairing role of the EU Agencies Network on 1 March 2023 for a period of one year.