The European Commission has launched a Europe-wide public debate on how to ensure adequate, sustainable and safe pensions and how the EU can best support the national efforts. The European Commission will then analyse all responses and consider the best course for future actions to address these issues at EU level.
The consultation document, a Green paper, poses a series of questions inviting all interested parties to contribute views, opinions and ideas on confronting the pension challenge - one of the biggest facing Europe and most parts of the world today – and how the EU can contribute to the solutions.
The Green Paper aims to review the European pension framework in a holistic and integrated manner, benefiting from synergies across economic and social policy and financial market regulation which is why so many different topics are covered, such as: longer working lives, the internal market for pensions, mobility of pensions across the EU, gaps in EU regulation, the future solvency regime for pension funds, the risk of employer insolvency, informed decision-making and governance at EU level.
In particular, it aims to address the following issues:
- Ensuring adequate incomes in retirement and making sure pension systems are sustainable in the long term
- Achieving the right balance between work and retirement and facilitating a longer active life
- Removing obstacles to people who work in different EU countries and to the internal market for retirement products
- Making pensions safer in the wake of the recent economic crisis, both now and in the longer term
- Making sure pensions are more transparent so that people can take informed decisions about their own retirement income
Interested parties are invited to submit their views by 15 November 2010 through the following dedicated website http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=pensions.
Further information
Green Paper and Commission Staff Working Document
EU and pensions