The European Insurance Forum, held in Dublin on the 9th and 10th of May, presented an opportunity to examine Ireland’s progress in overcoming the financial crisis that caused a severe recession beginning in 2008. It also highlighted the role played by the country’s re/insurance industry in managing that crisis, as well as the larger picture of a battered European Union emerging from the depths of the most serious economic upheaval the world has seen since the 1930’s.
Since 2004 Sarah Goddard, the CEO of the Dublin International Insurance & Management Association (DIMA), has played an important role in making sure that Ireland’s insurance sector remains a bulwark for the reconstruction of the country’s economy. It may still be too early to celebrate, but the signs are there that the country is recovering.
After the conference concluded Sarah told the IJ why, and reviewed many of the long term changes in the European Union, and its re/insurers, that have come about as a result, not only of the financial crisis, but also in response to the rapidly changing makeup of the global business community, as technology makes the world smaller and smaller.
“One of the reasons we chose to have it [the conference] on the 9th and 10th of May was because the 9th was Europe Day,” Sarah said. She explained, as did Damien English, a member of the European Parliament in his keynote speech, the significance for all Europeans. On that date in 1958 the first steps were taken to bring Europe’s nations together to make certain that the wars of the first half of the 20th century would never happen again. The EU’s 27 member nations are the direct result of that initiative.
Ireland currently holds the EU presidency, a post that rotates among member nations every six months. “There’s been a lot of activity in holding this position; Ireland is helping broker the future,” Sarah said. “We’re seeing things like the single banking union being brokered by Ireland, to bring a new mechanism into banking regulation in the way that banks are structured within Europe,” a role that Irish “politicians and civil servants should be rightly proud about.”
In addition to the engagements on banking Ireland is also involved in trying to iron out a deal for the adoption of the EU’s budget, which “didn’t get passed, when it was supposed to do so at the end of last year.” She said it is looking increasingly likely that the budget will be passed before Ireland’s presidency finishes at the end of June.
These actions are “a move towards the future,” in contrast to the turmoil over the last several years, which were almost exclusively given over to dealing with the financial crisis, as more countries were bailed out. Ireland expects to be completely clear of its engagements with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the EU’s bailout fund by the end of this year. “That will be a great step forward,” Sarah said. “In a lot of circles Ireland is being personified as the ‘Poster Boy’ of those economies;” the ones that have suffered serious impacts from the economic crisis. “We’re going in the right direction.”