Date: 8th November 2017
In line with the Commission’s proposal to introduce a Pan-European Pensions Product to supplement the low pension replacement rate for European citizens (see the BETTER FINANCE Pensions Report 2017), the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA) proposed a single framework allowing for regular reporting requests on occupational pension funds in EU Member States (see press release).
The framework is conceived to ‘increase efficiency and to further strengthen the monitoring and analysis of the European occupational pensions sector’ and allows for EIOPA to look into the reporting standards of national competent authorities for which a Consultation paper was issued. Pensions Europe, who represents pension funds associations throughout Europe, responded to the Consultation Paper on the aforementioned framework criticising ‘the legal basis to require the NCAs to report the data’ on savers’ contributions to the pensions funds, benefits paid or their investment income to EIOPA.
On the other hand Pensions Europe considers that the type of data that EIOPA wishes to collect, could be reported to an undetermined authority within a legal framework that currently does not exist. In other words, Pensions Europe is supportive of the proposal that NCAs should report data on occupational pension funds, but not to EIOPA, not that type of data, and not now.
Pensions Europe criticism points to a perceived conflict between the statutory legislation of EIOPA and the IORP II Directive, a competence creep by EIOPA into the field of social and labour policy, and the risk of such an arrangement to result in unnecessary additional costs for pension funds.