The European Commission continues to come up with ideas on pensions that “fail to address the real priorities” according to the National Association of Pension Funds (NAPF) chairman.
Speaking at the NAPF Investment Conference in Edinburgh, Ruston Smith said the real issue for the EU was the fact that 60% of the European population was not making any pension savings at all, rather than EIOPA’s focus on implementing the Holistic Balance Sheet as part of its overhaul of the Institutions for Occupational Retirement Provision (IORP) directive.
Smith warned the Holistic Balance Sheet was “still looming” as a threat to UK pensions as EIOPA has five consultations planned for later this year. This, he said, was despite the NAPF, the industry and the government having scored a “significant victory” in lobbying the European Commission against implementing it.
He said: “We must continue to be united – and fight for what is right for savers. To fight for regulation that incentivises – not disincentivises long-term pension saving and investment.”
Keeping on the regulation theme, Smith also called on the government to offer the industry more help with issues like regulatory approvals and making sure pension funds have a “visible pipeline of assets and instruments” to invest in for the Pensions Infrastructure Platform (PIP).
Elsewhere, he pinpointed the NAPF’s continued fight against the Financial Transaction Tax – expected to raise around €35bn annually across the EU. He said the NAPF, the UK government and the industry had pushed the FTT back with a successful legal challenge, but it is still on course to be delivered which would “damage investments of pension savers”.
“When will the EU learn to think longer term – and in the interests of the majority not the minority?,” he added.
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