EUROPE – The European Commission’s internal market and taxation chief Frits Bolkestein has called for progress on the Pension Funds Directive – on the eve of a decisive vote on the directive at the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee.

Bolkestein has called for “further quickening of the pace of reform in order to help restore investor and consumer confidence” with the Financial Services Action Plan being delivered by the end of 2005.

That requires the adoption of the proposed directive on pension funds, as well as investment services, prospectuses and transparency, Bolkestein said.

The remarks come as the European Parliamentary committee that is dealing with the Pension Funds Directive, the Economic and Monetary Affairs Committee, is meeting to discuss the directive.

The 42-member committee was today set to discuss the 48 amendments that have been tabled by MEPs to the Commission’s so-called common position on the directive. The committee is scheduled to vote on the amendments on February 19.

According to the EMAC’s website, the committee’s rapporteur on the Pension Funds Directive, Austrian MEP Othmar Karas, is “trying to work out a number of compromise amendments”. Karas said in January that the common position could not be accepted in its present version.

Among the amendments tabled are proposed changes concerning the social aspects of pension fund provision. If adopted by the EMAC, the directive would be unlikely to be acceptable to the Commission. If the directive is stalled in this way it would probably have to go into a lengthy “conciliation” process.

Following the EMAC vote, the European Parliament is expected to vote on the directive at its next plenary session, which takes place between March 10-27.

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