The European Federation for Retirement Provision (EFRP) says the correct transposition of the occupational pension fund directive could be undermined by a draft protocol by the EU’s committee of pensions supervisors.
It was responding to a draft put together by the Committee of European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Supervisors in March on how a single licence for occupational pension funds would operate.
The EFRP says its basic message is that the draft “must be made consistent” with the directive on institutions for occupational retirement provision – which is due to be transposed into national legislation in a matter of months.
The EFRP says supervisors in member states “seem to have lost sight of the fact that the pension fund directive obliges them to implement the directive in a way which creates a genuine internal market for occupational pensions”.
Such a market was unlikely to emerge if the CEIOPS protocol is adopted as it stands. “In the EFRP's view it proposes unnecessary administrative hurdles and is based on an inappropriate interpretation of what the pension funds directive requires.”
It adds: “The EFRP urges CEIOPS to ensure operational effectiveness, efficiency and clarity.”
CEIOPS’s secretary general Alberto Corinti says that the
committee would consider the EFRP’s comments, though he wouldn’t comment on them specifically. “We will follow our consultation procedure,” he says, adding that it would take time to process the responses to the consultation.
He says CEIOPS hopes to have the final protocol ready in time for the first application of the directive, in September or
October.

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