By Anne-France White - 30th November 2006
The EU’s employment ministers will debate controversial European commission proposals on the portability of pension rights on December 1.
In the face of strong opposition from both the council and parliament, the commission has now signalled that it is prepared to water down the draft directive.
The proposal, adopted by the European commission in October 2005, aims to improve workers’ ability to hold on to their pension rights when they change employers, and particularly when they move to another EU country.
But some of the more contentious proposals, such as the “transferability” clause, are being strongly resisted by member states and the pension sector.
The Scandinavian countries and the Netherlands are particularly opposed to new rules that they say would lead to pension funds being taken out of their territories.
Pension manager lobbies are also vigorously resisting the draft rules, arguing that they would lead to high costs and an increase in red tape.
The commission, meanwhile, argues that the draft directive is a key step towards enhancing the free movement of workers and adjust to the evolving job markets, with people staying in their jobs for shorter periods than ever before.
The ministers’ debate will centre around three questions asked by the EU Finnish presidency.
Crucially, one of the questions is: “can ministers agree that this directive should not contain provisions for transferability?”
This is a sign of the commission’s change of tactic: Brussels is now attempting to achieve agreement from the ministers on the less controversial clauses of the directive by setting aside the most controversial clause.
The idea is to try to achieve a first consensus and gradually work on the more controversial areas.
“Once the member states are involved in the common process, they will see that it is not that difficult to agree on pensions,” a commission official said on November 30.
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