By Martin Banks - 20th February 2012
Ensuring adequate pensions for the future is possible
László Andor
European commission plans to tackle the looming pensions crisis have met with a mixed response.
This comes after the executive published a white paper on what it calls providing "adequate, safe and sustainable" pensions.
The document looks at how the EU and its member states can work to tackle major challenges that confront its pension systems.
The commission has put forward a range of initiatives to help create what it hopes will be the right conditions so that those who are able can continue working.
The aim, it says, is three-fold: to create a better balance between time in work; to ensure that people who move to another country can keep their pension rights and to help people save more.
Presenting the white paper, EU commissioner László Andor, responsible for employment, social affairs and inclusion, said, "Ensuring adequate pensions for the future is possible if we follow through on our commitments to reform.
"The impact of ageing is upon us - the baby-boomers are retiring and fewer youngsters are entering the labour market.
"But it isn't too late to meet these challenges."
The commissioner said that raising retirement ages was important, adding that a recent eurobarometer survey shows many Europeans would stay in the labour market even beyond their pension age if the conditions were right.
Launch of the white paper coincides with the 2012 European Year for Active Ageing and Intergenerational Solidarity.
Pensions are the main income source for around a quarter of the EU's population and it is widely believed that younger Europeans will also come to rely on pensions later in their lives.
Ueapme, the European craft and SME employers' organisation said the proposals "must avoid raising the cost of occupational pensions for employers and workers".
"On the positive side, Ueapme agrees with the commission on the need to work longer by creating a better balance between time spent in work and retirement, as well as for individuals to save more by developing complementary private retirement savings," the organisation said.
However, it expressed concerns about the announced revision of the rules regulating and supervising the so-called institutions for occupational retirement provision (IORP), such as pension funds, warning, "The review must not make these schemes more expensive and less attractive."
Further comment came from the CEA, the European insurance and reinsurance federation.
It said it was "pleased that the commission has recognised the key role that complementary retirement savings can play in securing the future adequacy of pensions".
In a statement, it added, "Once these issues are appropriately addressed, the solutions found in Solvency II could then be a significant contribution to a framework ensuring comparable and high levels of policyholder protection for pension investments, whether offered via a pension fund or an insurance company."
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