25 September 2002

CEA paper on political agreement on Pension Funds Directive

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The Comité Européen des Assurances (CEA) welcomes the political agreement reached and supports the basic principles espoused by the directive: freedom of investment and management, the protection and safeguarding of the rights and interests of pensioners and the establishment of equivalent conditions of competition between all classes of operators on the supplementary pension market.

The CEA insists in particular on appropriate prudential supervision laying down the requirements with regard to assets and liabilities. In this respect, it approves of the application of the prudent person principle to all operators both for the management and for the activities of supplementary pension schemes. This principle should, moreover, apply not only to the period during which rights are established, but also to the period during which benefits are paid.

The establishment of a satisfactory single market for supplementary pensions implies the application of a single body of rules to all institutions operating in this field.

European insurers consider that the possibility for Member States to exempt institutions with less than 100 persons as members and beneficiaries is not appropriate to the situation in certain Member States in which there are a very high number of 'small' retirement institutions meeting the needs of small and medium-sized undertakings (SMEs) and requiring protection measures of a level at least as high as retirement institutions coming under the scope of the directive. This exemption could constitute discrimination for SMEs and would consequently run counter to the aim of the directive. For these reasons, article 5. in the proposal for a directive should be dropped.

Although the directive is aimed at financial service activities, CEA feels that the recitals should reflect, over and above the financial nature of the operations concerned, the particular occupational pension aspect of such operations, in order to take into account the specific situation in many Member States.

CEA paper

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