Mr President, Mr Karas, ladies and gentlemen, I would first like to thank you, Mr Karas, very sincerely for your work, and in particular for essentially making bricks without straw. In the world of politics, we sometimes find ourselves dealing with 'deceptive packaging'. There is nothing new about that. In the field of consumer protection, the term 'deceptive packaging' is used when the content is not what it says on the label. The Council – sometimes working in conjunction with the Commission – has recently adopted the image of a product counterfeiter. I am quite deliberately saying product counterfeiter, rather than refer to a peddler of phoney products, which sounds very harsh. It is a similar story with the product assessment of occupational retirement provision systems, the second pillar of the pension system. They are trying to make the public believe that they are talking about a supplementary pension system, without having to meet the necessary quality criteria including the pension requirements that the Committee on Employment and Social Affairs regards as necessary, for example, guaranteed payment of retirement provision until the end of the insured person's life, the payment of benefits to surviving dependants or the covering of risks in the case of disability. In addition to these quality requirements, financial risk and collective agreements between the social partners, which thus give those insured a voice, at present also have a fairly significant part to play. An additional factor that still militates against the freedom of movement of employees, and above all against their mobility, is the rather uncoordinated tax policy of the European Union in this context. Particularly in the case of occupational pension schemes, employees who take advantage of the freedom of movement of persons within the EU and make the European ideal a reality by switching jobs to other Member States can lose out because of differences in taxation, including double taxation. Unfortunately, the key features of a comprehensive second pillar in the pension system have scarcely been taken into account here. That is why the proposal for a directive before us should not be labelled 'supplementary pension system – second pillar', but should rather be seen for what it really is, namely a financial services product which only covers one small part of the full range of the second pillar. I say that because there is one thing we should not overlook in this context. Of all the measures relating to pension security, benefits and quality for the end consumer are a priority, whether we are talking about traditional state or adjustable contribution systems or about additional or supplementary pensions systems provided via the capital market. The Council seems to have forgotten about this in this particular context, even if we have to admit that the capital growth resulting from this product is generally to be welcomed. The fact that despite this there have been qualitative improvements in some areas of the proposal is no doubt something we owe to the rapporteur, who has tackled all the key issues very prudently. However, there is one thing we should be clear about, and that is that state pension systems can only be supplemented by good occupational pension systems or private pension funds and schemes, otherwise with increasing life expectancy we could sacrifice social symmetry. It is not difficult to imagine what that could mean. With these comments, I recommend that if the voting goes as promised earlier you should vote in favour.

Political group: PSE