IPE: EIOPA committee starts work on harmonisation of IORPs

28 April 2011

Work on advancing the harmonisation of workplace pensions (IORPs) is already moving ahead in the Occupational Retirement Stakeholder Committee, a body attached to the European Insurance and Occupational Pensions Authority (EIOPA).

Bruno Gabellieri, secretary general of the European Association of Paritarian Institutions of Social Protection (AEIP), said the committee's first steps – to upgrade IORPs – aimed to unravel the EU's disjointed social and labour laws. No definition for the measures exists, so each of the EU's 27 Member States countries is able to define them differently, according to Gabellieri.

The committee's intention is to have in place a "skeletal draft" of its recommendations on social and labour legislation to the EIOPA board as early as May. The committee for pensions, which has a separate counterpart for insurance, comprises a team of 30 members. They are drawn from pension funds, academics and representatives of consumers, users and employers. 

Other subjects touched on by the committee included a range of financial rules – such as the Markets in Financial Instruments Directive, which provides harmonised regulation for investment services and is now under review – and taxation.

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