12 August 2011

NAPF steps up campaign to protect pension schemes from Solvency II

In a submission to the EU pensions regulator EIOPA, the NAPF rejects the European Commission's assumption that large sections of the insurance industry's Solvency II Directive should be adapted for pensions. The NAPF also presses for a rigorous examination of the case for a new pensions Directive.

With the European Commission considering how the pensions Directive (officially known as the Directive on Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision or ‘IORP Directive’) should be updated, the NAPF hopes that officials in Frankfurt-based EIOPA will advise the Commission to amend its plans to apply much of the Solvency II system to pensions. The NAPF has pointed out repeatedly that pensions are very different from insurance, largely because they are paid over the long term in a relatively predictable manner.

The NAPF’s latest submission comments on EIOPA’s draft of the first tranche of its advice to the Commission. A second tranche will be published in October, and this is expected to cover the most sensitive issue – the question of pension scheme funding levels.

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© NAPF - National Association of Pension Funds