IPE: Brussels failing to recognise social aspect of IORP Directive

13 February 2013

The European Association of Paritarian Institutions (AEIP) has accused the European Commission of ignoring the social aspects of the revised IORP Directive and "mistakenly" concluding the Directive relates only to internal market policies.

AEIP director Francesco Briganti said that the European Commission, in revising the IORP Directive based on new solvency rules, failed to make any distinction between the prudential aspects of IORPs and social law, which is applied to the pension schemes managed by IORPs.

"In trying to apply solvency rules for occupational pensions, the European Union is not just addressing to the sole IORP – as the name of the Directive indicates – but the scheme itself", he said. "This, in turn, implies that the Directive will have larger scope than it is supposed to." Briganti went on to say that, in many EU Member States, occupational pension schemes are complex structures involving several actors, with the IORP being just one. According to him, all those actors are often also involved in actions aimed at keeping the solvency requirements of the scheme.  

He concluded that the IORP Directive should not be classified solely as internal market legislation but also social legislation.

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