Supplementary pensions: towards a single market, consultations on the Green Paper

The committee adopted the report by Wilfried KUCKELHORN (PES, D) on the Commission communication on a single market for supplementary pensions. The report welcomed the fact that the Commission was intending to draw up a directive on supplementary pensions with the aim of developing a genuine single market for pension funds. It stressed that supplementary pension schemes could help to meet the challenges arising from demographic trends and high unemployment in Europe as they would complement pay-as-you-go pension schemes without replacing them. It emphasised that the long-term goal should be to establish pan-European pension schemes and eliminate distortions of competition resulting from unequal national fiscal treatment of pensioners. It called for freedom of investment, saying that Member States should not compel pension funds to invest in particular categories of investment. The report also focused on the question of the acquisition and preservation of pension entitlements and the transfer of pension rights in order to ensure proper freedom of movement of workers. The committee welcomed the Commission's proposal to establish a European Pensions Forum bringing together representatives of the Member States, pension funds and the social partners to monitor existing and future Community legislation, and called for women to be properly represented on that body. The report highlighted the need to take account of women's employment patterns so as to combat the current discrimination suffered by women, who were more likely to interrupt their careers in order to bring up children and were thereby disadvantaged by long pension qualification periods geared to continuity of employment.�