All Notes from Brussels articles – Page 4
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Social and labour issues
Disputes between Brussels and national governments are likely to emerge when the European Commission unveils in June its position on the rules concerning national social and labour law (SLL).
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Enforcement problems
Enhancement to the EU’s successful UCITS legislation for cross-border collective investments is now underway. But there are nagging concerns that whatever the outcome for UCITS V, the good work could be undone by member states and their judicial systems failing to enforce common rules.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Soup-kitchen future?
There are increasing forecasts of widespread poverty for Europe’s pensioners in future decades. For a start, there are the 60m citizens in the EU who do not have an occupational scheme. Longevity combined with feeble returns on investment, plus millions of young, non-contributing unemployed people, support the forecast of misery.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Deaf ears for EC claims
Summer 2013 might be some way off but it is when the European Commission intends to publish its proposals for IORP II. And signs from the Commission are that the usual procrastination is no longer intended.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Lack of trust blamed for low savings
While euro-zone household savings, including retirement provision, grew steadily from around €600bn gross savings at the end of the century to a peak of €910bn in 2009, they fell to €834bn by 2011.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: EU clears the decks
The Brussels legislative programme for the financial sector will be as frenetic as ever from now until early 2013. It is a race to achieve as much as possible before electoral canvassing by MEPs starts ahead of the parliamentary elections in May 2014.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: Ins and outs of ‘flexileg’
In the old days, an international investment bank could study a Brussels Directive or Regulation and make plans.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: A welcome day
You can almost hear the sound of satisfied occupational pension fund representatives rubbing their hands together at the news that the IORP II Directive has been postponement.
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Opinion Pieces
Letter from Brussels: HFT debate hots up
The debate in Brussels on high-frequency trading (HFT) is heating up. The main forum is the European Parliament’s economic and monetary affairs committee (ECON), which in July will clarify its position with a vote.
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Opinion Pieces
EC backing for VC
Radical changes in opportunities to invest in venture capital (VC) are emerging via the EU, including in Brussels, where the European Parliament is now vetting a draft Regulation on European Venture Capital Funds. The package aims to make it easier for VC funds to raise capital from across the EU.
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Opinion Pieces
Politicians vs pensions
Two strongly divergent positions concerning the European Commission’s proposals for a financial transaction tax (FTT) have emerged in Brussels. Pension fund interests vehemently oppose the tax, while other parties, including some members of the European Parliament, take a diametrically opposite view.
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Opinion Pieces
Don’t touch Article 18
Investment rules for workplace pension funds should not be harmonised at European level. At least, this is the view aired in several responses to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s (EIOPA) call for advice (CfA) document on the revisions to the 2003 IORP Directive.
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Opinion Pieces
IORP under pressure
The European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority’s (EIOPA) call for advice on the subject of revisions to the EU’s 2003 IORP Directive on work-place-based pensions closes on 2 January 2012. It seeks advice on the extent to which the legislative framework should be similar to that for other financial institutions and products.
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Opinion Pieces
Building sector pensions
The European Association of Paritarian Institution’s (AEIP) is working on a continent and sector-wide pension system for the building industry. Francesco Briganti, director of AEIP’s Brussels office, says it aims to create a sector-wide social scheme that could eventually pool pension contributions. Overall benefits would be the spread of best practice in this vast industrial sector.
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Opinion Pieces
Thoughtful ownership
Investment managers too often have very little understanding of the businesses in which they are investing, delegates were told at a meeting in Brussels during the launch of a new study on stewardship.
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Opinion Pieces
Plenty on the horizon
Even without fears of a double-dip recession, the wake of the 2008 crisis is keeping European Commission financial law drafters working hard at the legislative coalface. And that was before European Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, warned, early in August, that the sovereign debt crisis was spreading beyond the periphery ...
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Opinion Pieces
MiFID II
The European Commission is preparing its revision of the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive (MiFID I) that provides harmonised regulation for investment services. MiFID II is due to be published in September 2011, slightly delayed from the earlier deadline of July.
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Opinion Pieces
Clearer position on derivatives
Powerful forces are pushing both for and against an opt-out for pension funds from central clearing requirements in proposed legislation on market infrastructure, making it anyone’s guess as to the final result. However, the European parliamentary rapporteur’s softening of position must be reasonable grounds for hope.
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Opinion Pieces
Defusing Short-Termism
The European Commission’s (EC) new green paper, ‘The EU Corporate Governance Framework’, clearly aims to encourage company owners to take a more active role in influencing management.
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Opinion Pieces
Meet Ms Active Ageing
Pension funds will observe with interest the European Commission’s announcement goal of the European Innovation Partnership on Active and Healthy Ageing. This is to add two years to the average EU healthy lifespan by 2020. However, achieving healthy, longer lives is not quite as straightforward as it seems.
