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Pensioen Federatie’s intervention came shortly before the EU Council, the body for all EU governments, today announced what could be seen as its response to the work of the Next CMU group, the body created by France, Germany and the Netherlands.
“With the new European Commission kicking off this week, we call upon the EU to reinvigorate the project and set an ambitious new agenda for the next five years,” said the Dutch pension fund association.
It highlighted three main recommendations for the EU “to harness the long-term investment potential of pension funds”. According to the association, although almost 90% of Dutch pension funds’ assets were invested outside the Netherlands, there were still barriers to investing cross-border in the EU.
It called for a harmonised procedure for repayment of withholding tax, arguing that a “patchwork of procedures and outcomes” held back intra-EU investments, particularly for smaller pension schemes.
Pensioen Federatie also backed a multi-pillar adequacy test for pension systems whereby EU member states would set their own long-term improvement targets but get assistance from EU bodies. “While the design of pension systems should remain a national competence, the EU should urge member states to set the level of ambition for retirement income for their citizens,” it said.
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