Commission launches formal consultation on possibly new pensions law

12 June 2002



-
The European Commission has launched a formal consultation of social partners on the portability of supplementary pension rights, a problem which obstructs the mobility of EU workers.

The Commission consultation paper analyses three key parameters of supplementary pension schemes:

  • rules on acquisition and preservation of pension rights ;
  • rules on transferability of pension rights ;
  • rules on cross-border membership of pension schemes (remaining in the same pension scheme while moving to a job in another Member State).

    Anna Diamantopoulou said : ' Only an EU-wide solution can address this problem, which is a serious headache for a growing number of workers in the EU.“

    “Agreements such as the recent political consensus allowing EU-wide pension funds are important but they tend to mask the serious problems which individual workers will still face when they are forced to change from one company pension scheme to another, even within their own Member State.”

    “We must therefore consider carefully what must be done about the conditions of acquisition, preservation and transferability of supplementary pension rights throughout the EU.”

    The decision draws upon the work of the Pensions Forum, a consultative committee set up in 2000 to assist the Commission in identifying solutions to the problems associated with cross-border mobility of workers in the field of supplementary pensions. The decision gives an overview of the initiatives already taken by the Commission regarding supplementary pensions and seeks the view of the social partners on:

  • the need for EU action on the portability of supplementary pension rights,
  • the form such action should take (collective agreement, directive, recommendation, code of practice, guidelines, etc.),
  • the main features of such a measure,
  • whether action at cross-sectoral and/or sectoral level should be further considered,
  • the possible material scope of such a measure (type of schemes to be covered).

    The current EU legislation on social security for migrant workers does not cover non-statutory occupational pension schemes. The Directive on safeguarding the supplementary pension rights of employed and self-employed persons moving within the EU addresses only some of the problems, such as the position of posted workers. However, the Directive does not address the problems linked to the conditions of acquisition of the rights or their transferability (i.e. the possibility to transfer a worker's pension capital from one scheme to another).

    More recently, two initiatives have been put forward at EU level in relation to cross-border membership:

  • the Pension Funds Directive on which political agreement has been reached and which seeks to create at European level a common legal framework for the activities of these institutions,
  • the Commission Communication on the elimination of tax obstacles to the cross-border provision of occupational pensions, which proposes a comprehensive strategy to address the tax obstacles that currently act as a major disincentive to cross-border membership.

    Commission press release
    More information on transferability of pension rights of the ‘Groupe Consultatif’
    FT article: New pensions law a possibility, says Brussels

    © European Commission