Proposal for a Council Decision on the position to be taken in the EU-Switzerland Joint Committee concerning a technical revision of the Agreement on direct insurance other than life insurance

The Agreement between the European Economic Community and the Swiss Confederation on direct insurance other than life assurance, which entered into force on 1 January 1993, aims to offer specific conditions for Swiss branches of insurers operating in the EU and conversely. In particular, under the Agreement a Swiss branch in the EU will still be subject to Swiss solvency requirements, thus placing these activities on the same footing as those in Switzerland.

The Agreement establishes a Joint Committee composed of representatives of Switzerland and representatives of the European Union. The EU-Switzerland Joint Committee is to adopt the envisaged act, annexed to the proposed Council Decision, the purpose of which is to amend the annexes and protocols to the Agreement in order to incorporate the following revisions:

- Adapt to the new risk-based solvency regimes in the EU (Directive 2009/138/EC Solvency II) and Switzerland (Swiss Solvency Test or SST). Solvency II entered into application on 1 January 2016, and the SST entered into force after the Agreement. Updating the Agreement on this point would ensure that Swiss and EU supervisors apply these modernised frameworks within the Agreement, as they do for insurers outside the Agreement.

- Update the list of acceptable legal forms of Member States in Annex III. This is relevant in particular for those which joined the EU after the previous revision. The Commission intends to use the list of legal forms of non-life insurance undertakings contained in Annex III of Solvency II.

- Update the Euro-Swiss Franc conversion rate to reflect the current conversion rate.

EUR-Lex: COM(2017)666: Follow the progress of this proposal through the decision-making procedure http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/HIS/?uri=COM:2017:666:FIN

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