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The AEIP welcomed the European Commission's recognition of the role of social partners in the formulation of Member States' pension policies, but it rejected a "purely internal market" approach to workplace pensions. Francesco Briganti, director at the AEIP, said: "Looking at several factors that form the structure of workplace pensions, there are some important differences arising among European countries. While pension schemes are based on a compulsory basis in the Netherlands, a country such as Italy has not yet introduced such incentives. Therefore, in Italy, workers can easily decide to remove funds from their pension scheme, which can deeply impact the solvency of the plan."
Also commenting on the holistic balance sheet approach – introduced by the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) as a substitute to the Solvency II capital requirements within the revised IORP Directive – Briganti said the measures could be a "disaster" in some countries such as Belgium.
He also rejected the term 'holistic balance sheet', advocating the 'holistic' approach only. "Under Belgian law, the company sponsoring a pension fund has to guarantee a minimum return on investments of 3 per cent where the financial markets cannot provide that minimal return", he said. "From an accounting point of view, if a firm uses the holistic balance sheet, it will have to introduce a random-cost approach in its annual budget to guarantee that 3 per cent. But this additional cost would not be real due to the fact that, in 90 per cent of cases, financial markets manage to provide a minimal return of 3 per cent."
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