Brussels – To foster dialogue between institutions, insurance industry representatives and business leaders at the European level; to give new impetus and centrality to the role of insurance companies in supporting the new European agenda for competitiveness: with these intentions Unipol lands in Brussels, where it inaugurates its brand new headquarters in the capital of the European Union, perceived by the group as a strategic presence that can no longer be postponed.
“We increasingly feel the need to follow the course of newly formed or evolving regulations, and the decision to open an office in Brussels has this purpose,” explained Unipol chairman Carlo Cimbri at the press conference held to inaugurate the new office, representing clear and stated intentions: “It is not true that the insurance sector is effective in lobbying, because all the sector has achieved is a European Commission review in 2027 on the rules” for the sector, i.e. the adjustment of “Solvency II” regulations and insurance distribution directives. Hence, the desire for a change of course, which translates into the need to create “a sense of urgency” for a whole new Europe.
“Either we become a Europe with common defence, common debt, common market, and favour freedom of capital and regulations for companies, or we are doomed to increasingly become an outlet market for other economies without being competitive,” warns the Unipol chairman, who intends to work on all this with renewed vigour bringing the insurance industry’s perspective to a future-proof EU agenda. “The capital market is one of the prerequisites for having a true European economy,” he recalls, but another element is “transnational operations” to create larger and stronger groups. In that sense, Cimbri complains, “I do not remember any transnational operations in recent years.” And he warns: “If it keeps going like this, we will become marginal.” Unipol’s move to Brussels is intended to avoid this.
English version by the Translation Service of Withub
