The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) has reaffirmed its commitment to reducing administrative burden in a constructive and balanced way, but stressed that simplification should be a continuous, long-term guiding principle of regulatory and supervisory work, not a one-off exercise.

This commitment forms part of EIOPA's update to its approach to simplification, which took stock of progress since the approach was first published in April 2025 and set out the authority’s ongoing efforts and plans.

The update explained that given that a well-functioning single market, including in financial services, is central to the continent's growth, resilience, and competitiveness, Europe has a shared interest in developing regulatory and supervisory frameworks that are simpler, more efficient, and more focused on principles and outcomes.

The authority also stressed that Europe needs to respond to the rapidly evolving geopolitical, economic, and technological landscape with greater unity, agility, and speed.

Given the European Union’s (EU) unique setup, EIOPA considers that regulatory simplification must be guided by a European perspective.

This perspective includes placing long-term collective interests above national specificities, supporting convergent rules and supervisory practices across the EU, and avoiding unnecessary divergence or fragmentation within the single market.

In terms of progress made on the simplification agenda so far, EIOPA has cut quarterly reporting templates by 26 per cent and annual reporting templates by 30 per cent for solo undertakings under the revised Solvency II Directive.

The authority added that it has also made reductions for small undertakings (36 per cent) and non-complex undertakings (44 per cent).

Additionally, EIOPA reviewed 25 sets of guidelines and shortened them by around a third, while also adopting a simplification-driven approach to new level three measures, ensuring they are introduced only where there is a clear supervisory need.

EIOPA also highlighted that it has implemented a new proportionality framework under Solvency II, made greater use of existing reported data where possible instead of creating new reporting obligations, made bottom-up stress tests less frequent and strengthened top-down analytical capabilities.

In the past year, EIOPA also simplified its internal working group structure, bringing efficiency and closer coordination with national supervisors.

Beyond these measures, EIOPA has committed to ensuring coherence between horizontal and sectoral legislation and promoting integrated and digital-friendly data reporting that benefits both undertakings and supervisors.

It also committed to favouring outcome-oriented principles for consumer-relevant legislation over prescriptive processes and extensive documentation requirements.

In particular, EIOPA said it wanted earlier, more structured involvement in the legislative process, which it believes would help co-legislators assess the need, scope and feasibility of technical mandates.

In line with this, it argued that simplifying regulation should also mean paying greater attention to the sequencing of legislative files.

In particular, EIOPA suggested that where multiple requirements from different pieces of legislation overlap, appropriately phased implementation timelines can help avoid unnecessary operational pressure and complexity.

Furthermore, the authority emphasised that robust impact assessments should accompany both new legislation and reviews of existing rules to ensure that the benefits outweigh the costs and resources required for implementation.

Meanwhile, on the supervision side, EIOPA argued that clear, consistent, and effectively enforced rules are among the strongest drivers of simplification for undertakings across Europe.

Given this, it suggested that a more structured dialogue with industry could help identify where complexity and practical obstacles arise and how to address them within the existing legislative framework, including through better application of proportionality and supervisory expectations.

“Better coordination between supervisors – from the outset of supervisory action, through shared tools and expertise – can further reduce fragmentation and contribute to more predictable and efficient supervision across the single market,” EIOPA concluded.  

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