Local view for "http://purl.org/linkedpolitics/eu/plenary/2003-03-11-Speech-2-274"
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"en.20030311.11.2-274"2
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". – Mr President, the Commission would like to thank the European Parliament and especially the rapporteur. The rapporteur has been so kind as to thank my cabinet and my services. I am duly grateful for those compliments and shall certainly pass them on to my staff. I thank the rapporteur and the chairman of the Committee on Economic and Monetary Affairs, Mrs Randzio-Plath, for their judicious and efficient handling of this important file and for their very constructive and cooperative attitude during this second reading.
This directive is of particular strategic importance, not just for our capital markets, but also for our labour markets and perhaps, more importantly, for the sustainability of our public finances and our pension systems as a whole. This directive has clearly been identified as a priority by Heads of State and Government, notably at the Barcelona European Council.
The current situation in Europe is characterised by three aspects: first, a growing general awareness of what I would describe as the ‘demographic timebomb’; second, a clear determination by all Member States to address the financial challenges without undermining the social objective of their pension systems; third, a strong desire by the Member States to preserve the specificity of the pension systems in their efforts to modernise them. After all, the responsibility for designing and managing pension systems remains with the Member States and there is no intention of changing that.
It is against that background that our efforts to create an internal market framework for the institutions offering occupational pensions must be considered. A directive aimed at creating a prudential framework for pension funds must fit in with this process of steady but gradual and coordinated reform of national pension systems.
This directive must also - and this has been of fundamental importance for the Commission - fully respect two essential principles: first, full respect for the very wide diversity of the occupational retirement business among Member States and, second, non-interference in the organisation of Member States’ pensions systems.
I am very pleased to note that the package of compromise amendments tabled by the PPE-DE, Socialist and Liberal groups fully complies with those two principles."@en1
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