Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2006-07-03-Speech-1-056"

Predicate	Value (sorted: default)
rdf:type	lpv_eu:Speech2
dcterms:Date	"2006-07-03"^^xsd:date2
dcterms:Is Part Of	lp_eu:Crisis of Equitable Life (debate)2
dcterms:Language	"en"^^xsd:language2
lpv:document identification number	"en.20060703.13.1-056"2
lpv:hasSubsequent	lp_eu:2006-07-03-Speech-1-0572
lpv:speaker	lp:Proinsias De Rossa2
lpv:spoken text	". Mr President, I welcome the debate tonight on this interim report by Mrs Wallis, which has largely been agreed by consensus within the Committee of Inquiry. One of the extraordinary aspects of this issue is the fact that those outside the UK who purchased policies from Equitable Life did so believing that they had European Union protection and that the regulators in their own country would protect them. They then discovered some years ago that, in fact, they have no protection whatsoever. When the 8300 investors in Ireland, who were putting money aside for their pensions, and about 4000 such investors in Germany went to their respective regulators, they were told to go and talk to the UK regulator. This is not the way that people expected to be dealt with. This report highlights another important aspect: the manner in which this has come to the House through the Committee on Petitions. That committee is one of the most effective ways of bringing Europe close to the citizens. The Commissioner and others have said that it is too early yet to draw conclusions. However, one of the conclusions I have come to is that we need to look closely at the manner in which financial services are regulated, because it would appear that we expect a regulator to do two functions which are distinctly different. One is to protect the stability of the financial services market, and the other is to protect the interests of the investor. At one level it may be that this is possible, because clearly an investor in pension funds is interested in having a stable market. However, when it comes to the crunch – when a treasury may face large claims – does the regulator protect the market or protect the investor? In this particular instance the UK Treasury was directly responsible for regulating Equitable Life and it would have been faced with claims for billions of pounds sterling had it found that Equitable Life should close down. It did not choose to do so. I would argue that we need to look closely in Solvency II at what regulators are expected to do and separate out those two functions."@en1
lpv:spokenAs	unknown; Labour Party (2004-07-20--2009-07-13)3 member; PES (2004-07-20--2009-07-13)3 substitute; Temporary Committee on the alleged use of European countries by the CIA for the transport and illegal detention of prisoners (2006-01-19--2007-02-14)3 substitute; AFET (2004-07-21--2007-01-14)3 vice-chair; Delegation for relations with the Palestinian Legislative Council (2004-09-20--2007-03-13)3 member; PETI (2004-07-21--2007-01-14)3 member; EMPL (2004-07-21--2007-01-14)3 member; Committee of Inquiry into the crisis of the Equitable Life Assurance Society (2006-01-19--2007-06-19)3
lpv:unclassifiedMetadata	"Proinsias De Rossa,"1 "on behalf of the PSE Group"1

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